Perfluorocarbon-based supported liquid membranes for O2/N2 separation

Air separation is an important commercial process because oxygen and nitrogen are used in several vital industrial processes. This paper reports the implementation of perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) imbued in porous alumina tubes as a supported liquid membrane to carry out the separation of O-2 and N-2. The PFTBA-supported membrane reached an average O-2/N-2 selectivity of 60 with an O-2 permeance of 8.0 x 10(-10) mol m(-2) s(-1) Pa-1. It is shown that the membrane's selectivity increases as the temperature increases but the stability of the membrane is reduced. Moreover, the separation of H-2 and N-2 was studied to provide insight on the functioning of the membrane and a H-2/N-2 selectivity of 100 was observed with a H-2 permeance of 1.0 x 10(-9) mol m(-2) s(-1) Pa-1. The permeance order was H-2 > O-2 > N-2, so the size of the permeating species was found to be an important contributor to the permeance. PFTBA presents an excellent separation performance when compared with conventional supported ionic liquid membranes (SILMs). For instance, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate [emim][BF4] showed a maximum O-2/N-2 selectivity of 6 and permeance of 3.4 x 10(-12) mol m(-2) s(-1) Pa-1. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.