Fabrication of defect‐free p84® polyimide hollow fiber for gas separation: Pathway to formation of optimized structure

Miren Etxeberria‐Benavides*, Oguz Karvan, Freek Kapteijn, Jorge Gascon, Oana David

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)
105 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The elimination of the additional defect healing post‐treatment step in asymmetric hollow fiber manufacturing would result in a significant reduction in membrane production cost. However, obtaining integrally skinned polymeric asymmetric hollow fiber membranes with an ultrathin and defect‐free selective layer is quite challenging. In this study, P84® asymmetric hollow fiber membranes with a highly thin (~56 nm) defect‐free skin were successfully fabricated by fine tuning the dope composition and spinning parameters using volatile additive (tetrahydrofuran, THF) as key parameters. An extensive experimental and theoretical study of the influence of volatile THF addition on the solubility parameter of the N‐methylpyrrolidone/THF solvent mixture was performed. Although THF itself is not a solvent for P84®, in a mixture with a good solvent for the polymer, like N‐Methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP), it can be dissolved at high THF concentrations (NMP/THF ratio > 0.52). The as‐spun fibers had a reproducible ideal CO2/N2 selectivity of 40, and a CO2 permeance of 23 GPU at 35 °C. The fiber production can be scaled‐up with retention of the selectivity.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4
Number of pages15
JournalMembranes
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • CO2/N2 separation
  • Defect‐free fibers
  • Hollow fiber spinning
  • Ultrathin skin layer

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