Water permeability and competitive permeation with CO2 and CH4 in perfluorinated polymeric membranes

The permeability of water through polymeric membranes is of particular interest in gas separation, because of the high water vapor content found in many industrial applications. Polymeric membranes that are resistant to competitive sorption and plasticization by water are especially attractive, since they can reduce the need for gas pretreatment in many membrane applications. The perfluorinated polymers Teflon AF1600 and Hyflon AD60 are studied here for this purpose because of their strong hydrophobicity and unusual solvent properties. It was observed that water permeability through both perfluorinated polymers was of the same magnitude as CO2. Indeed, under the conditions studied, Teflon AF1600 was selective for CO2 over water. Such reverse selectivity for the CO2 - H2O gas pair has not been reported before for glassy polymeric membranes and reflects the very low solubility of water in the polymer. The water permeability through Hyflon AD60 was greater than that for CO2 with a minimum at 55 degrees C. The change in both CO2 and CH4 permeability through Teflon AF1600 and Hyflon AD60 was investigated as a function of water activity in the feed gas to investigate the effects of competitive permeation. It was observed that CO2 and CH4 permeability in both membranes reduced with water activity. For both Teflon AF1600 and Hyflon AD60, the decrease in permeability of both gases with water activity was interpreted as water clusters blocking the diffusion of both CO2 and CH4 through the membrane. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.