Effects of inorganic additive of two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride on the gas separation/permeation for PVDF-derived membranes

Use of inorganic additives in membrane development has been widely employed to improve the performance of polymer membranes. Inorganic additive like hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) was incorporated in polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) to prepare PVDF/h-BN composite membranes. Obtained membranes were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy. The objective was to study the effect of different wt. % of h-BN (0.35, 0.45 and 0.55 wt.%) on single gas (CO2 and CH4) transport properties of the composite membrane. The highest permeabilities of 4.30559 x 10(5) and 3.19250 x 10(5) Barrer, for CO2 and CH4, respectively, were achieved using PVDF/h-BN (0.55 wt. %) composite membrane.