Journal
ADVANCES IN COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
Volume 164, Issue 1-2, Pages 45-55Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.cis.2011.01.005
Keywords
Gas separation; Ionic liquids; Gas membrane separation; Supported ionic liquid membrane; Solution diffusion mechanism
Categories
Funding
- QUILL
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Supported ionic liquid membranes (SILMs) has the potential to be a new technological platform for gas/organic vapour separation because of the unique non-volatile nature and discriminating gas dissolution properties of room temperature ionic liquids (ILs). This work starts with an examination of gas dissolution and transport properties in bulk imidazulium cation based ionic liquids [C(n)mim][NTf2] (n = 2.4, 6, 8.10) from simple gas H-2, N-2, to polar CO2, and C2H6, leading to a further analysis of how gas dissolution and diffusion are influenced by molecular specific gas-SILMs interactions, reflected by differences in gas dissolution enthalpy and entropy. These effects were elucidated again during gas permeation studies by examining how changes in these properties and molecular specific interactions work together to cause deviations from conventional solution-diffusion theory and their impact on some remarkably contrasting gas perm-selectivity performance. The experimental perm-selectivity for all tested gases showed varied and contrasting deviation from the solution-diffusion, depending on specific gas-IL combinations. It transpires permeation for simpler non-polar gases (H-2, N-2) is diffusion controlled, but strong molecular specific gas-ILs interactions led to a different permeation and selectivity performance for C2H6 and CO2. With exothermic dissolution enthalpy and large order disruptive entropy, C2H6 displayed the fastest permeation rate at increased gas phase pressure in spite of its smallest diffusivity among the tested gases. The C2H6 gas molecules peg on the side alkyl chain on the imidazulium cation at low concentration, and are well dispersed in the ionic liquids phase at high concentration. On the other hand strong CO2-ILs affinity resulted in a more prolonged residence time for the gas molecule, typified by reversed CO2/N-2 selectivity and slowest CO2 transport despite CO2 possess the highest solubility and comparable diffusivity in the ionic liquids. The unique transport and dissolution behaviour of CO2 are further exploited by examining the residing state of CO2 molecules in the ionic liquid phase, which leads to a hypothesis of a condensing and holding capacity of ILs towards CO2, which provide an explanation to slower CO2 transport through the SILMs. The pressure related exponential increase in permeations rate is also analysed which suggests a typical concentration dependent diffusion rate at high gas concentration under increased gas feed pressure. Finally the strong influence of discriminating and molecular specific gas-ILs interactions on gas perm-selectivity performance points to future specific design of ionic liquids for targeted gas separations. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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