Investigation of poly(ether-b-amide)/nanosilica membranes for CO2/CH4 separation

The results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on transport process of CO2 and CH4 gases in poly(ether-b-amide) (PEBAX)/nanosilica membranes are discussed. The diffusion coefficients for CH4 and CO2 gases at 6 cases with different amounts of nanosilica loading in the simulation boxes are presented. The results show that diffusion coefficients for CO2 gas in all cases are larger than those for the CH4 one. Moreover 10% nanosilica loading case shows maximum effects on diffusion coefficients and improves them by more than 68% and 157% for CO2 and CH4 gases, respectively. Additionally, the results of 3-D Cartesian trajectories and displacements curves are presented and the jumping attempt of CO2 is significantly more than that of CH4. Due to the rubbery state of PEBAX membranes in ambient temperature, the results confirm that channel lifetimes are very short and then back diffusion is not observed for this polymer.