The Soroush group has recently developed a novel polymer membrane for the separation of CO2 from other gases. The CO2-removal performance of the membrane is above the 2008 Robeson upper bound, which represents the performance of the best existing membranes for CO2 removal. The membrane has 50–60% higher CO2 permeability and 30–33% higher CO2/N2 selectivity compared to pristine Pebax membranes. It also has acceptable durability. It was fabricated by embedding modified TiO2 nanoparticles into Pebax-1657 as a polymer matrix. This work has appeared in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A (Arabi Shamsabadi et al., 5, 4011-4025, 2017).
The importance of the removal of CO2 from gas streams is threefold. First, the removal leads to a lower level of CO2 emission, which is known to contribute to the global warming and acid rain. Second, it increases process efficiency in the chemical and petrochemical industries. Third, the captured CO2 can be used to enhance oil and gas recovery in the petroleum industry and manufacture products such as polymers and fuels.