IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
Volume 36, Issue 1, 27 June 2016, Article number 012008, ISSN: 17551307
Jami’An, W.N.R., Hasbullah, H., Mohamed, F., Yusof, N., Ibrahim, N., Ali, R.R.
Abstract
Throughout this decades, membrane technology has been the desirable option among the others gas separation technologies. However, few issues have been raised regarding the membrane gas separation application including the trade-off between its permeability and selectivity and also its effects towards environment. Therefore, for this research, a biopolymer membrane for gas separation application will be developed with reasonably high on both permeability and selectivity. The main objective of this research is to study the effect of solvent evaporation time on the flat sheet asymmetric membrane morphology and gas separation performance. The membranes were produced by a simple dry/wet phase inversion technique using a pneumatically controlled casting system. The dope solution for the membrane casting was prepared by dissolving the cellulose acetate (CA) polymer in N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and the solvent evaporation time was varied. Permeability and selectivity of the membrane was performed by using pure gases of carbon dioxide, CO2 and methane, CH4. The increase in solvent evaporation time had improved the membrane morphologies as the porosity of the membrane surface decrease and formation of a more mature skin layer. The gas permeation tests determined that increasing in solvent evaporation time had increased the selectivity of CO2/CH4 but reduce the permeability of both gases.
