Ren Yi, Ma Hui, Kim Jinsu, Al Otmi Mohammed, Lin Ping, Dai Changhui, Lee Young Joo, Zhai Zihan, Jang Woo Jin, Yang Shijie, Sarswat Akriti, Feliachi Yacine, Sampath Janani, Realff Matthew J, Lively Ryan P, Guo Sheng
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, MOE Key Laboratory of High-Performance Polymer Materials & Technology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
Science. 2025 Jan 10;387(6730):208-214. doi: 10.1126/science.adp2619. Epub 2025 Jan 9.
We explored the potential for membrane materials to reduce energy and carbon requirements for the separation of aliphatic hydrocarbon feedstocks and products. We developed a series of fluorine-rich poly(arylene amine) polymer membranes that feature rigid polymer backbones with segregated perfluoroalkyl side chains. This combination imbues the polymers with resistance to dilation induced by hydrocarbon immersion without the loss of solution-based membrane fabrication techniques. These materials exhibit good separation of liquid-phase alkane isomers at ambient temperatures. The integration of these polymeric membranes into fuel and chemical feedstock separation processes was investigated in a series of experiments. Technoeconomic analyses based on these experiments indicate that the best-performing membrane materials can substantially reduce the energy costs and associated carbon emissions of hydrocarbon separations (two to 10 times, depending on product specifications).
我们探索了膜材料在降低脂肪烃原料和产品分离所需能源及碳排放量方面的潜力。我们开发了一系列富含氟的聚（亚芳基胺）聚合物膜，这些膜具有刚性聚合物主链以及隔离的全氟烷基侧链。这种组合赋予聚合物抵抗烃类浸泡引起的膨胀的能力，同时又不损失基于溶液的膜制备技术。这些材料在环境温度下对液相烷烃异构体具有良好的分离性能。在一系列实验中研究了将这些聚合物膜集成到燃料和化学原料分离过程中的情况。基于这些实验的技术经济分析表明，性能最佳的膜材料可大幅降低烃类分离的能源成本及相关碳排放（降低两到十倍，具体取决于产品规格）。
