Development of membranes and membrane modules for gas separation

The goal of the project is the preparation and testing of several types of membranes in the form of hollow fibers differing in their composition and structure:

1. Preparation of hollow fibers membranes based on commercially available linear polymers, such as polyetherimides, polysulfones and polyamideimides.
Aim: Preparation quality hollow fiber membrane, hollow fibres production parameters optimization using statistical methods for design of experiments that lead to production of membranes with the highest permeability and selectivity.

2. Preparation of hollow fibers from polymer blends based on a semi-interpenetrating network.
Aim: To prepare hollow fibers from a blend of a linear polymer and a second polymer forming a network, where the two polymers are each other penetrated at the molecular level. These mixtures have greater free volume resulting in a rise in the permeability and selectivity, crosslinked component also prevents the plasticizing polymer sorption separated gas.

3.Preparation of the double-layer hollow fibers.
Objective: The hollow fibers with porous wall will be made of a material such as polysulfone, which is conventionally used for nanofiltration or dialysis membranes and their preparation already been realized in the workplace MemBrain. These hollow fibers will be deposited separation layer by exposure in a polymer solution in polyvinyl alcohol or PEBAX. This phase will be focused on the technology of removing the solvent from the center of the hollow fiber and in particular the technology of applying the separation layer. In the first step discontinuously and later it would be ideal to realize continuous application of the separating layer on the hollow fiber.

4.Development and production of membrane modules:
Aim: The construction of a membrane module with several thousand fibers with a total active area of the membrane in terms of square meters. To develop procedures for handling membranes in the form of hollow fibers.