Synthesis, characterization and CO2 separation performance of novel PVA/PG/ZIF-8 mixed matrix membrane

This work reports the synthesis of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) having regular pore size (similar to 0.35 nm) embedded to the poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/piperazineglycinate (PG) solution. High performance mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) prepared by solution coating of PVA/PG/ZIF-8 solution onto a polyethersulfone (PES) support were utilized for CO2/N-2 gas separation studies. Detailed thermal, structural and microscopic analysis of the synthesized ZIF-8 particles was conducted. The characterization studies and the performance evaluation tests were performed for the prepared MMMs. The excellent compatibility of ZIF-8 filler in the PVA/PG matrix resulted in enhancement of CO2 permeance and CO2/N-2 selectivity. The results depicted that PVA/PG membrane loaded with 5 wt% ZIF-8 (PVA/PG/ZIF-8(5)) showed a high CO2 permeance of 82 GPU and CO2/N-2 selectivity of 370 which was 82.2% and 76.2% higher when compared to pure PVA/PG membrane. Thus ZIF-8 doped PVA mixed matrix membrane serves as a potential candidate for industrial gas separation studies.