Tan and Sven's paper published in Science: True molecular sieving!
special super zeolite (SSZ-) 39 and his polyimide friend for the win!
A collaboration of polymer and zeolite, of the membrane group (Prof. Vankelecom) and ours
That small pore zeolites are great catalysts, we know all too well at the Dusselier Lab, but that they are also an excellent material for mixed matrix membranes, only has come to our attention recently. Sealing the interface between zeolite filler and polymer matrix has been one of the biggest hurdles in creating highly performant zeolite-filled mixed matrix membranes, yet thanks to some recent breakthroughs in collaboration with the membrane group of Prof. Ivo Vankelecom, we were able to overcome these issues. This paper, now published in the prestigious journal ‘Science’ shows the clear role of the zeolite, and its pores of fixed size, in acting as a percolating highway through the membrane for CO2, whilst preventing molecules with bigger kinetic diameters such as N2 and CH4 from easily entering the crystals. In this way the zeolite acts as a true molecular sieve for light gasses…
Read all about it here, in Science 2022 vol 378, Issue 6625 !
A shoutout to Quanli Ke, former group member, who with Tan, laid the first stones for this project. Congrats and thanks to Sven from our group and Xiaoyu Tan and prof. Vankelecom and the whole membrane group!
[72] Truly combining the advantages of polymeric and zeolite membranes for gas separations
![[72] Truly combining the advantages of polymeric and zeolite membranes for gas separations](https://www.dusselier-lab.org/uploads/media/cache/default/uploads/4bddef1adf550685b87adefb41365c91.png)
Mixed-matrix membranes (MMMs) have been investigated to render energy-intensive separations more efficiently by combining the selectivity and permeability performance, robustness, and nonaging properties of the filler with the easy processing, handling, and scaling up of the polymer. However, truly combining all in one single material has proven very challenging. In this work, we filled a commercial polyimide with ultrahigh loadings of a high–aspect ratio, CO2-philic Na-SSZ-39 zeolite with a three-dimensional channel system that precisely separates gas molecules. By carefully designing both zeolite and MMM synthesis, we created a gas-percolation highway across a flexible and aging-resistant (more than 1 year) membrane. The combination of a CO2-CH4 mixed-gas selectivity of ~423 and a CO2 permeability of ~8300 Barrer outperformed all existing polymer-based membranes and even most zeolite-only membranes.