Facile infiltration of polyethyleneimine as a strong CO2 retardant in scalable dual-polymer membranes for H2/CO2 separation

Successful pre-combustion CO2 capture from synthetic gas for H2 production requires effective membrane separation technology. While polymer-based membrane materials offer promising industrial scalability, they generally lack a sufficiently high H2/CO2 selectivity to make this process energy-efficient. In this work, we have designed a scalable dual-polymer blend membrane consisting of sulfonated polyphenylsulfone (sPPSU) and polybenzimidazole (PBI), and then being infiltrated with amine-rich poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI) molecules as effective CO2 retardants to substantially elevate the H2/CO2 selectivity. PEI molecules were infiltrated into the dual-polymer matrix via solution-treatment to crosslink the polymer network and retard CO2 transport using its amine-rich nature. The PEI infiltration dramatically increased the H2/CO2 selectivity of the dual-polymer matrix from 4.6 to up to 59.3 while maintaining a minimum H2 permeability of 2.49 Barrer at a low temperature of 35 degrees C, which not only surpasses the Robeson upper bound but also places the newly developed membrane among the best-performing polymer-based membranes. More importantly, the solution infiltration of PEI incurs no phase segregation, maintaining the polymer mechanical robustness, which is crucial for industrial scaling. This study offers promising opportunities to develop three-polymer membrane systems for H2/CO2 separation using synergistic polymer blends and CO2-retarding molecules.