Recent developments in polyetherimide membrane for gas separation

Polyetherimide (PEI) is an extraordinary type of polyimide with excellent thermal and mechanical properties. The polymer is also gas permeable and is considered one of the best membranes for gas separation. Despite the high selectivity, PEI suffers from low permeability due to the trade-off between phenomena in polymers. To overcome this limitation, fillers are added during the membrane preparation to create voids for better gas transport. In this paper, permeability and selectivity data of PEI membranes for the separation of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and helium are discussed. The paper also summarizes the reported studies for adding fillers to improve the membrane performance.