Poly(4-Methyl-1-Pentene) (PMP) with Nano Fumed Silica as Filler for CO2/N2 Gas Separation

Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) separation with membrane technology has become the focus of researchers over the past decades due to its lower energy consumption and cheaper alternative. Mixed matrix membrane (MMM) of poly(4-methyl-1-pentene) (PMP) with nano fumed silica particles was studied to determine the feasibility of using MMM to separate CO 2 from nitrogen (N 2 ) gas. The critical concentration of PMP (7 wt%) was utilized to form the membrane in this study in order to ensure the polymer chain entanglement occurs to form a dense structure. Agglomeration of particle can be observed on the surface with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging with 10 and 15 wt% of nano fumed silica loading in PMP matrix. This observation is further confirmed with energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping across the cross-sectional area which shows clustered nano fumed silica particle with loading of 10 and 15 wt%. With 7.5 wt% filler loading and at 1 bar, the MMM seems to give the best gas permeance performance with CO 2 permeance of 4.62 GPU (100.54 Barrer) and N 2 permeance of 0.20 GPU (4.31 Barrer) which makes the highest ideal selectivity to be about 23, which was the highest ideal selectivity achieved in this study. Meanwhile, when the pressure was increased from 1 to 7 bar, the CO 2 permeability increased almost linearly followed by a steady decline in CO 2 /N 2 ideal selectivity.