Gas Permeation Properties, Physical Aging, and Its Mitigation in High Free Volume Glassy Polymers.

Hundreds of polymers have been evaluated as membrane materials for gas separations, but fewer than 10 have made it into current commercial applications, mainly due to the effects of physical aging and plasticization. Efforts to overcome these two problems are a significant focus in gas separation membrane research, in conjunction with improving membrane separation performance to surpass the Robeson upper bounds of selectivity versus permeability for commercially important gas pairs. While there has been extensive research, ranging from manipulating the chemistry of existing polymers (e.g., thermally rearranged or cross-linked polyimides) to synthesizing new polymers such as polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs), there have been three major oversights that this review addresses: (1) the need to compare the approaches to achieving the best performance in order to identify their effectiveness in improving gas transport properties and in mitigating aging, (2) a common standardized aging protocol that allows rapid determination of the success (or not) of these approaches, and (3) standard techniques that can be used to characterize aging and plasticization across all studies to enable them to be robustly and equally compared. In this review, we also provide our perspectives on a few key aspects of research related to high free volume polymer membranes: (1) the importance of Robeson plots for membrane aging studies, (2) eliminating thermal history, (3) measurement and reporting of gas permeability and aging rate, (4) aging and storing conditions, and (5) promising approaches to mitigate aging.

Surface and charge transport characterization of polyaniline-cellulose acetate composite membranes.

This study elucidates the charge transport processes of polyaniline (PANI) composite membranes and correlates them to the PANI deposition site and the extent of PANI surface layering on the base microporous membranes. PANI was deposited either as a surface layer or inside the pores of cellulose acetate microporous membranes using various in situ chemical polymerization techniques. The extent of PANI layering at the surface of the base membrane and its oxidation and doping states were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). PANI deposition on the membranes showed a strong dependence on the polymerization technique and polymerization time within a single technique. In XPS, the deconvolution of C 1s and N 1s core-level spectra of the composite membranes was used to quantify the extent of PANI layering at the surface along with its oxidation and doping states. PANI incompletely covered the surface of the base microporous membranes for all the employed techniques. However, the extent of the layering increased with the polymerization time in a particular technique. The charge transport through the bulk membrane and charge transfer at the membrane/electrode interface were studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The data were analyzed using the equivalent circuit modeling technique. The modeling parameters revealed that PANI deposition at the surface enhanced the interfacial charge transfer but the process depended on the extent of the surface coverage of the membrane. In addition, the charge transport in the bulk membrane depended on the PANI intercalation level, which varied depending on the polymerization technique employed. In addition, the EIS of electrolyte-soaked membranes was also conducted to evaluate the effects of PANI deposition site on charge transport in the presence of an electrolyte. PANI layering at the pore walls of the base membrane from diaphragmatic polymerization in a two-compartment cell showed that charge transport processes were strongly affected by the interaction of the electrolyte with the PANI layer at the pore surface. This study successfully showed the dependence of charge transport mechanisms of PANI composite membranes on the PANI deposition site and extent of surface layering at the membrane surface.

Control of polyaniline deposition on microporous cellulose ester membranes by in situ chemical polymerization.

Polyaniline (PANI) can be deposited either on the surface or in the bulk of a microporous membrane by various chemical oxidative polymerization techniques. Each technique has distinctive effects on the PANI site and extent of deposition on the base membrane. In the present study, mixed cellulose ester (ME) membranes with tortuous pore morphology were used as base membranes. The chemical oxidative polymerization techniques employed, included polymerization using an in-house-built two-compartment permeation cell. The resultant composite membranes have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), and electrical conductivity measurements. The results showed that PANI was layered on the pore walls of the membrane using two-compartment permeation cell. Vapor-phase polymerization yielded a surface layer of PANI with little deposition in the bulk. A distorted PANI surface layer was achieved by solution-phase (dip) polymerization. Moreover, asymmetric PANI deposition within the membrane bulk was evidenced using two-compartment permeation cell. Composite membranes synthesized using two-compartment cell showed highest levels of conductivity (approximately 10(-2) S/cm) as compared to the membranes modified by single-step solution-phase polymerization. FTIR-ATR results indicated the extent of PANI coating and its oxidation state which was identified as doped emeraldine PANI, from all the employed techniques. Asymmetric deposition and extent have been explained in terms of the physical and chemical reaction steps involved in the heterogeneous aniline polymerization reactions in the two-compartment cell technique.

Towards a continuous dynamic kinetic resolution of 1-phenylethylamine using a membrane assisted, two vessel process.

A continuous process with two separated reaction vessels provides a solution to the problems surrounding the combination of two catalysts in dynamic kinetic resolution reactions by retaining the biocatalyst in a lower temperature vessel with a microfiltration membrane and allowing the racemisation to occur efficiently in a higher temperature vessel.

Elucidation of the mechanism of chiral selectivity in diastereomeric salt formation using organic solvent nanofiltration.

Organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) was used to investigate the mechanism of chiral selectivity in diastereomeric salt formation of alpha-phenylethylamine with D-tartaric acid and di-p-toluoyl-D-tartaric acid as resolving agents; results indicate that for these systems chiral selectivity occurs only upon crystallisation and chiral interactions in solution were negligible.