Vapor phase infiltration (VPI) is a vapor processing technique that converts polymers into organic–inorganic hybrid materials with modified properties. VPI of polymer membranes stabilizes against dissolution and swelling in organic liquids, opening up new opportunities for use in organic solvent reverse osmosis (OSRO) separations. However, the precise chemical structure of the infiltrated inorganic components remains poorly understood, limiting the potential to fully exploit process–structure–property relations for materials design and slowing the development of new hybrid membranes. This study explores the structural characteristics contributing to the chemical stability of PIM-1/ZnOxHy hybrid membranes through advanced spectroscopic techniques to clarify the chemistry and inorganic cluster formation in these materials that lead to enhanced stability in solvents that otherwise swell or dissolve the pure polymer. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicates a predominantly zinc hydroxide chemistry with higher proportions of oxide forming only at increasing cycle counts. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy provides new understanding of the first and second coordination shells. These results indicate that the size of the clusters increases with prolonged VPI precursor exposure and additional VPI cycles, leading to improvements in membrane solvent stability. These findings offer a new understanding for how the physicochemical structure of these hybrid membranes can be characterized and then used to design for a desired performance.
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Engineering organic solvent reverse osmosis in hybrid AlOxHy / polymer of intrinsic microporosity 1 (PIM-1) membranes using vapor phase infiltration
A solvent-free post-treatment process known as vapor phase infiltration (VPI) is used to engineer the organic solvent reverse osmosis (OSRO) performance of polymer of intrinsic microporosity 1 (PIM-1) membranes via infiltration of trimethylaluminum (TMA) metal-organic vapor. The infiltration of inorganic aluminum constituents hybridizes the pure polymer PIM-1 into an organic-inorganic material (AlOxHy/PIM-1) with enhanced chemical stability. A homogenous distribution of inorganic loading in PIM-1 is achieved due to the reaction-limited infiltration mechanism, and the OSRO performance is enhanced as a result. OSRO separations of ethanol/isooctane mixtures using these membranes are shown to be capable of breaking the azeotropic composition with a separation factor for ethanol over isooctane greater than 5 and an ethanol permeance of 0.1 Lm–2h–1bar–1. Thus, these organic-inorganic hybrid membranes created via VPI show promise as an alternative method for separating azeotropic liquid mixtures.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1921873
- PAR ID:
- 10543375
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Membrane Science Letters
- Volume:
- 3
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2772-4212
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 100064
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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