Preparation of mixed matrix polymeric membranes and investigation of their gas transport properties

In recent years, with developing of membrane technology and increasing of usage area, researches about producing materials that have excellent properties gain important. The usage area of membrane material is filtration, reverse osmosis, dialyze, pervaporation and gas separation. Recent ten years, effective, economic and comfortable application of polymeric membranes is increased widely. Enrichment nitrogen and oxygen from air, separation of hydrogen from nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane mixer, removing carbon dioxide from natural gas and removing volatile compounds from air are wide applications for commercial applications of polymer membranes. In these applications, polymer membranes are used with high fluxes and excellent selectvities confidently. Permeability and selectivitiy properties of materials must be high, their mechanical, thermal and chemical resistance must be at desired level and chosen material must be processable when selecting materials for membrane making. Although, selectivity of material is the most important criteria, commercially availability is another important criteria. In membrane researches, providing these criterias is aimed for chosen materials. For this reason, studies about production of polimeric materials that have superior properties have been gaining importance. Another way to obtain high selectivity and permeability properties is adding nano dimensional additives like silica or forming mixed membrane matrix by adding second polimer to main polimer matrix like Polyethyleneglycol (PEG). In the recent years, similar studies have focused on developing separation properties of membrane materials. In this study, gas separation membranes that have high selectivity and permeability were prepared and their gas separation performances were investigated. Initially, selectivity and permeability properties of poly ether ether ketone (PEEK) Aptiv films were investigated for H2, CH4, N2, O2 ve CO2 pure gases. Sulfonated PEEK membranes (S-PEEK) were prepared by sulfonating PEEK polymer. S-PEEK/PPSf, S-PEEK/PEI and PPSf/PEI membranes were prepared. Gas transport and morphology properties of PPSf/PEI membranes were investigated. Besides, silica nanoparticles were added to poly(etherimide) (PEI) and poly(phenylsulfone) (PPSf) polymer matrix for developing gas separation properties. Gas separation and morphology properties of prepared PEI/PPSf/Silica composite membranes were compared with pure PEI, pure PPSf and PPSf/PEI membranes. Effects of silica on membrane gas separation properties were investigated. Morphologies of PPSf/PEI membranes and PPSf/PEI/Silica nanocomposite membranes that were prepared by adding silica nanoparticles were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Keywords: Poly (ether ether ketone) (PEEK), Poly (phenyl sulfone) (PPSf), Poly (ether imide) (PEI), gas separation membranes, mixed-matrix polimeric membranes