Cellulose acetate mixed-matrix membranes doped with high CO2 affinity zeolitic tetrazolate-imidazolate framework additives

Introducing CO 2 affinity additives into membrane is one of significant approaches to improve the CO 2 permeability of membranes for natural gas sweetening. In current work, high performance mixed-matrix membranes were successfully obtained using the cellulose acetate (CA) and the zeolitic tetrazolate-imidazolate frameworks (ZTIFs) with highly CO 2 affinity as matrix and additive respectively. The interaction between CA matrix and ZTIFs was verified by the FT-IR. The SEM, EDS and XRD were used to evaluate the morphology properties of these membranes. The CO 2 permeability of CA/ZTIFs mixed-matrix membranes which is closely correlated to the loading of high CO 2 affinity ZTIF additive were in a range of 9.59–15.85 Barrer, implying the indispensable role of the ZTIF additive in changing the CO 2 dissolution and diffusion behavior inside the membranes. The ideal compatibility and gas selectivity proved the great potential of the ZTIFs additives for the gas separation application.