Arabian Journal of Chemistry (Jun 2023)
Methylene diisocyanate - aided tailoring of nanotitania for dispersion engineering through polyurethane mixed matrix membranes: Experimental investigations
Abstract
The present focus of environmental science is centred on addressing the significant and controversial challenge of separating acid gases. As a result, scientists are actively engaged in developing high-performance membranes that can effectively transport gases. An important factor in achieving superior gas separation efficiency is the ability to control the rate of chemical component penetration through the membrane. This has led to an increasing interest in mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) that contain inorganic nanoparticles homogeneously dispersed within the polymer matrix, which are becoming a popular alternative to traditional polymeric membranes. In this work, the morphological properties of polyurethane (PU) membrane treated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is functionalized with methylene diisocyanate (MDI), were studied, and its gas transport properties, like selectivity and permeability, were evaluated. FTIR, XRD, TG, DTG, and SEM analyses were performed for neat and MMMs to study their morphological properties in phase I of the research. Our results showed that MDI modification improved the dispersion of TiO2 in the PU matrix, resulting in a more uniform and compact membrane structure. Moreover, gas permeability results showed that incorporating up to 1 wt% of unfunctionalized and functionalized TiO2 into the PU matrix enhanced the CO2/N2 selectivity by 71.69% and 78.42%, respectively. Overall, this study demonstrated the potential of MDI-aided tailoring of TiO2 for dispersion engineering in PU MMMs, which can lead to improved gas separation performance. The findings have implications for developing advanced materials for gas separation applications, particularly in industrial processes such as natural gas purification and carbon capture.
