Analysis of CO(2) Facilitation Transport Effect through a Hybrid Poly(Allyl Amine) Membrane: Pathways for Further Improvement

Numerous studies have been reported on CO(2) facilitated transport membrane synthesis, but few works have dealt with the interaction between material synthesis and transport modelling aspects for optimization purposes. In this work, a hybrid fixed-site carrier membrane was prepared using polyallylamine with 10 wt% polyvinyl alcohol and 0.2 wt% graphene oxide. The membrane was tested using the feed gases with different relative humidity and at different CO(2) partial pressures. Selected facilitated transport models reported in the literature were used to fit the experimental data with good agreement. The key dimensionless facilitated transport parameters were obtained from the modelling and data fitting. Based on the values of these parameters, it was shown that the diffusion of the amine-CO(2) reaction product was the rate-controlling step of the overall CO(2) transport through the membrane. It was shown theoretically that by decreasing the membrane selective layer thickness below the actual value of 1 µm to a value of 0.1 µm, a CO(2) permeance as high as 2500 GPU can be attained while maintaining the selectivity at a value of about 19. Furthermore, improving the carrier concentration by a factor of two might shift the performances above the Robeson upper bound. These potential paths for membrane performance improvement have to be confirmed by targeted experimental work.