Researchers Shows New Membrane’s Potential For Better Greenhouse Gas Separation

A new membrane, developed by bioengineers from KU Leuven, succeeds in separating CO 2 from methane or nitrogen efficiently, quickly and cheaply. This is of great importance for the production of pure natural gas or biogas and for capturing CO 2 from combustion gases. The research, recently published in Science , could help to reduce industrial CO 2 emissions in the long term.

“The current membranes can still be improved,” says Professor Ivo Vankelecom of KU Leuven. “A good membrane is both very selective and very permeable: it only lets the right component through and then as much as possible. The membranes that are currently used usually score very well in only one area: either they are highly permeable or highly selective. In our research, we combined the best of both worlds and formed one membrane from two materials that scores better than the separate variants on both permeability and selectivity.”

Researchers Xiaoyu Tan and Sven Robijns set to work with the combination of polymers and zeolites. Polymers are cheap and easy to convert into membranes, but they also allow other gases to pass through , in addition to CO 2 . By adding porous inorganic materials to the polymer, in this case a zeolite, a so-called organomineral membrane is formed. This combination greatly improves separation when properly joined. “This is particularly important for industrial applications. On the one hand, purer natural gas and biogas are formed, on the other hand, more greenhouse gases can be removed and they do not end up in the environment. The channels in our zeolite extend in three dimensions and have a very high affinity for CO 2, so that with this new membrane the separations also take place sufficiently quickly,” adds Professor Michiel Dusselier of KU Leuven.