Polyolefin reweaved ultra-micropore membrane for CO2 capture

Xiuling Chen; Guining Chen; Cong Xie; Lei Wu; Gongping Liu; Nanwen Li; Wanqin Jin

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-55540-z

Polyolefin reweaved ultra-micropore membrane for CO₂ capture

Nat Commun. 2025 Jan 2;16(1):282. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-55540-z.

Authors

Xiuling Chen^{1

2}, Guining Chen², Cong Xie¹, Lei Wu³, Gongping Liu⁴, Nanwen Li⁵, Wanqin Jin⁶

Affiliations

¹ Hubei Key Laboratory of Radiation Chemistry and Functional Materials, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Xianning, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan, China.
⁴ Hubei Key Laboratory of Radiation Chemistry and Functional Materials, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Xianning, China. [email protected].
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan, China. [email protected].
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China. [email protected].

Abstract

High-performance gas separation membranes have potential in industrial separation applications, while overcoming the permeability-selectivity trade-off via regulable aperture distribution remains challenging. Here, we report a strategy to fabricate Polyolefin Reweaved Ultra-micropore Membrane (PRUM) to acquire regulable microporous channel. Specifically, olefin monomers are dispersed uniformly into a pristine membrane (e.g., PIM-1) via solution diffusion method. Upon controlled electron beam irradiation, the olefin undergoes a free radical polymerization, resulting in the formation of olefin polymer in-situ reweaved in the membrane. The deliberately regulated and contracted pore-aperture size of the membrane can be accomplished by varying the olefin polymer loading to achieve efficient gas separation. For instance, PIM-1 PRUM containing 27 wt% poly-glycidyl methacrylate demonstrate CO₂ permeability of 1976 Barrer, combined with CO₂/CH₄ and CO₂/N₂ selectivities of 58.4 and 48.3 respectively, transcending the performance upper bounds. This controllable and high efficiency-design strategy provides a general approach to create sub-nanometre-sized pore-apertures of gas separation membranes with wide universality.