Surface modification of polypropylene hollow fiber membranes using fluorosilane for CO(2) absorption in a gas-liquid membrane contactor

Conventional methods for improving the hydrophobicity of polypropylene (PP) membranes to prevent wetting phenomena require complex pretreatment procedures in order to activate the surface for enabling the reaction with fluorosilane (FS)-based materials. This study successfully prepared PP membrane contactors with enhanced hydrophobicity through a simple single-step dip-coating method using perfluoroether-grafted silanes for CO(2) capture. The FS coating layer on the PP membrane surface was confirmed through ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, XPS, FE-SEM, and EDS. Furthermore, the evaluation of the CO(2) absorption performance and long-term stability of the FS-coated PP membrane according to the variation of the gas flow rate (50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 mL/min) confirmed the superior chemical stability and durability of our membranes to those of previously reported hydrophobic membranes. The as-prepared FS-coated PP membrane expands the application scope of gas-liquid membrane contactors for CO(2) capture from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants.