The effect of nanoparticles on gas permeability with polyimide membranes and network hybrid membranes: a review

Polyimide membranes and network hybrid membranes exhibit high permeability despite good thermal and chemical stability, and high selectivity in gas mixture separation. In this study, the effect of nanoparticle distribution on the network polymer network, and changes in permeability, selectivity, and structure of the composite lattice membrane are investigated. According to the obtained permeability results, this increase in permeability was due to the increase of polymer network free volume and the formation of cavities in the nanoparticle-polymer interface. The significant results were that the permeability growth of gases with larger molecular size such as methane and nitrogen was higher than other gases. A comparison of the permeability growth of gases with the increasing volume fraction of nanoparticles confirms the dominance of the molecular sieve mechanism and the type of membrane transport mechanism change over polyimide and network Hybrid.