Microporous thermally rearranged polymer membranes

Abstract

Microporous polymers are a class of polymeric materials with high free volumes and large surface areas. Microporous polymers have received much attention for various applications in gas separation, gas storage, and for clean energy resources due to their easy processability for mass production, as well as microporosity for high performance. As gas separation membrane materials, microporous materials exhibit high flux based on the fast gas transport through membrane matrix. Moreover, the easy processability of polymeric materials has been a great advantage for expansion into industrial applications.Recently reported rigid polymer membranes, so-called thermally rearranged (TR) polymer membranes have been developed from ortho-functionalized polyimides by a post thermal conversion process. They demonstrate bimodal cavity size of 0.3-0.4 nm and 0.7-0.9 nm and narrow cavity size distributions characterized by PALS measurement which is an efficient transport path for small molecules and ions, especially for CO2 molecules. As a result, TR polymer membranes exhibit both high permeability and high selectivity based on high diffusion of gas molecules. One of great benefits of TR polymers is the ability to tune the cavity sizes by designing polymer structures and thermal conversion routes for specific gas separation applications including CO2 capture from flue gas. Moreover, their solubility in organic solvents allows them to have potential use in large-scale industrial applications. In this presentation, we will report on the recent progress of thermally rearranged microporous polymer membranes for applications such as in energy and water.