Surface of CuO Nanoparticles Modified by p-Benzoquinone for N2-Selective Membrane

Juyeong Lee; Hiesang Sohn; Sang Wook Kang

doi:10.3390/membranes12121229

Surface of CuO Nanoparticles Modified by p-Benzoquinone for N₂-Selective Membrane

Membranes (Basel). 2022 Dec 5;12(12):1229. doi: 10.3390/membranes12121229.

Authors

Juyeong Lee¹, Hiesang Sohn², Sang Wook Kang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Sangmyung University, Seoul 03016, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Kwangwoon University, Seoul 01897, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Chemistry and Energy Engineering, Sangmyung University, Seoul 03016, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

In this study, CuO nanoparticles and p-benzoquinone (p-BQ) were added to a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) matrix to increase N₂/CO₂ selectivity. The added p-BQ allowed CuO to be distributed in a uniform size in the PVP/CuO composite membrane and the matrix to be flexible by forming the interaction with PVP. The surface modification of CuO by p-BQ and the well-dispersed size affected the increase in the separation performance. The PVP/CuO/p-BQ composite membranes showed an N₂/CO₂ selectivity of about 23.1 with N₂ permeance of about 13.3 GPU, while the separation performance of PVP was not observed. The enhanced separation performance is attributable to the surface of CuO nanoparticles modified by p-BQ inducing CO₂ molecules to be relatively slowly transported by the adsorption properties in the polymer matrix. The chemical properties and coordinative interaction for PVP/CuO/p-BQ composite membrane were measured by FT-IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, UV-vis, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.

Keywords: composite membrane; interaction; permeance; polyvinylpyrrolidone; selectivity; separation performance.

Abstract

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