Membranes based on natural polymers, in particular alginate, are of great interest for various separation tasks. In particular, the possibility of introducing silver ions during the crosslinking of sodium alginate makes it possible to obtain a membrane with an active olefin transporter. In this work, the creation of a hollow fiber composite membrane with a selective layer of silver alginate is proposed for the first time. The approach to obtaining silver alginate is presented in detail, and its sorption and transport properties are also studied. It is worth noting the increased selectivity of the material for the ethylene/ethane mixture (more than 100). A technique for obtaining a hollow fiber membrane from silver alginate has been developed, and its separating characteristics have been determined. It is shown that in thin layers, silver alginate retains high values of selectivity for the ethylene/ethane gas pair. The obtained gas transport properties demonstrate the high potential of using membranes based on silver alginate for the separation of an olefin/paraffin mixture.
Keywords: composite membrane; ethylene–ethane separation; gas separation properties; silver alginate.