Wang Xuerui, Shan Meixia, Liu Xinlei, Wang Meng, Doherty Cara M, Osadchii Dmitrii, Kapteijn Freek
Chemical Engineering Department , Delft University of Technology , Van der Maasweg 9 , 2629 HZ Delft , The Netherlands.
Process & Energy Department , Delft University of Technology , Leeghwaterstraat 39 , 2628 CB Delft , The Netherlands.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Jun 5;11(22):20098-20103. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b05548. Epub 2019 May 24.
Increasing helium use in research and production processes necessitates separation techniques to secure sufficient supply of this noble gas. Energy-efficient helium production from natural gas is still a big challenge. Membrane gas separation technology could play an important role. Herein, a novel poly( p-phenylene benzobisimidazole) (PBDI) polymeric membrane for helium extraction from natural gas with low He abundance is reported. The membranes were fabricated by a facile interfacial polymerization at room temperature. The thin and defect-free membrane structure was manipulated by the confined polymerization of monomers diffusing through the interface between two immiscible liquids. Both He/CH selectivity and He permeance are competitive over those of other commercial perfluoropolymers. Even at low He content of 1%, separation performance of the PBDI membrane transcended the current upper bound. The unprecedented selectivity (>1000) together with the excellent stability (∼360 h) endows PBDI membranes with a great potential for energy-efficient industrial recovery and production of this precious He resources from reservoirs with low abundance.
研究和生产过程中氦气使用量的增加，使得分离技术成为确保这种稀有气体充足供应的必要手段。从天然气中高效节能地生产氦气仍然是一个巨大的挑战。膜气体分离技术可能会发挥重要作用。在此，报道了一种新型的聚对苯撑苯并双咪唑（PBDI）聚合物膜，用于从低氦含量的天然气中提取氦气。这些膜是通过在室温下简便的界面聚合制备的。通过单体在两种不混溶液体之间的界面处扩散进行受限聚合，从而控制了薄且无缺陷的膜结构。氦/甲烷选择性和氦渗透率均优于其他商用全氟聚合物。即使在氦含量低至1%的情况下，PBDI膜的分离性能也超越了当前的上限。前所未有的选择性（>1000）以及出色的稳定性（约360小时），使PBDI膜在从低丰度储层中高效节能地工业回收和生产这种珍贵的氦资源方面具有巨大潜力。
