Hazazi Khalid, Wang Yingge, Ghanem Bader, Hu Xiaofan, Puspasari Tiara, Chen Cailing, Han Yu, Pinnau Ingo
Chemical Engineering Program, Physical Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Center, Physical Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
Nat Mater. 2023 Oct;22(10):1218-1226. doi: 10.1038/s41563-023-01629-7. Epub 2023 Aug 24.
Replacement or debottlenecking of the extremely energy-intensive cryogenic distillation technology for the separation of ethylene from ethane has been a long-standing challenge. Membrane technology could be a desirable alternative with potentially lower energy consumption. However, the current key obstacle for industrial implementation of membrane technology is the low mixed-gas selectivity of polymeric, inorganic or hybrid membrane materials, arising from the similar sizes of ethylene (3.75 Å) and ethane (3.85 Å). Here we report precise molecular sieving and plasticization-resistant carbon membranes made by pyrolysing a shape-persistent three-dimensional triptycene-based ladder polymer of intrinsic microporosity with unparalleled mixed-gas performance for ethylene/ethane separation, with a selectivity of ~100 at 10 bar feed pressure, and with long-term continuous stability for 30 days demonstrated. These submicroporous carbon membranes offer opportunities for membrane technology in a wide range of notoriously difficult separation applications in the petrochemical and natural gas industry.
替换用于从乙烷中分离乙烯的极其耗能的低温蒸馏技术或消除其瓶颈，一直是一项长期挑战。膜技术可能是一种理想的替代方案，具有潜在的更低能耗。然而，目前膜技术在工业应用中的关键障碍是聚合物、无机或混合膜材料的混合气体选择性低，这是由于乙烯（3.75 Å）和乙烷（3.85 Å）尺寸相似所致。在此，我们报告了通过热解一种具有固有微孔性的形状持久的三维三蝶烯基梯形聚合物制成的精确分子筛和抗塑化碳膜，其在乙烯/乙烷分离方面具有无与伦比的混合气体性能，在10 bar进料压力下选择性约为100，并且展示了30天的长期连续稳定性。这些亚微孔碳膜为膜技术在石油化工和天然气行业中一系列极其困难的分离应用提供了机会。
