Thin Film Mixed Matrix Hollow Fiber Membrane Fabricated by Incorporation of Amine Functionalized Metal-Organic Framework for CO/N Separation.

Membrane separation technology can used to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas. However, plenty of research has been focused on the flat sheet mixed matrix membrane rather than the mixed matrix thin film hollow fiber membranes. In this work, mixed matrix thin film hollow fiber membranes were fabricated by incorporating amine functionalized UiO-66 nanoparticles into the Pebax 2533 thin selective layer on the polypropylene (PP) hollow fiber supports via dip-coating process. The attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) mapping analysis, and thermal analysis (TGA-DTA) were used to characterize the synthesized UiO-66-NH nanoparticles. The morphology, surface chemistry, and the gas separation performance of the fabricated Pebax 2533-UiO-66-NH/PP mixed matrix thin film hollow fiber membranes were characterized by using SEM, ATR-FTIR, and gas permeance measurements, respectively. It was found that the surface morphology of the prepared membranes was influenced by the incorporation of UiO-66 nanoparticles. The CO permeance increased along with an increase of UiO-66 nanoparticles content in the prepared membranes, while the CO/N ideal gas selectively firstly increased then decreased due to the aggregation of UiO-66 nanoparticles. The Pebax 2533-UiO-66-NH/PP mixed matrix thin film hollow fiber membranes containing 10 wt% UiO-66 nanoparticles exhibited the CO permeance of 26 GPU and CO/N selectivity of 37.