(740a) Composite Organic-Inorganic Polymeric Membranes for CO2 Recovery Processes

A new process for CO₂ recovery from different gaseous streams is proposed, which is based on gas separation technology and takes advantage of peculiar characteristics of composite organic-inorganic polymeric membranes prepared combining rubbery polymers of good permselective properties for CO₂/permanent-gasmixtures with geopolymeric materials of suitable porosity and pore size distribution. In this work, PDMS and metakaolin-based geopolymers are specifically considered to produce composite membranes for the new gas separation process. Effective pure gas solubility and diffusivity isotherms for carbon dioxide, nitrogen and methane in the new polymeric materials as well as pertinent effective mixed gas permeance and selectivity of the membrane were measured by means of transient sorption and direct gas permeation experiments, respectively. Results indicates that significant improvements in productivity and separation factor are achieved with the new process, when compared to the case of conventional membrane separation processes.