Manipulating the monomers supply of interfacial polymerization towards the ultrathin polyamide composite membrane for CO2 capture

Preparing polyamide (PA) composite membranes with high gas separation performance requires rational control for the interfacial polymerization (IP) process. In this study, the monomer supply of piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in the IP process was precisely manipulated to generate an ultrathin PA film on the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) gutter layer for CO2 separation. Concretely, the PIP supply was regulated from the homogeneous, slow, and excess mode to the inhomogeneous, fast, and small mode by constructing a sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) array at the phase interface; subsequently, the TMC supply was increased by elevating the TMC concentration. Therefore, the amine-to-acid chloride concentration ratio in the reaction zone was optimized and, as a consequence, the IP reaction rate was significantly increased. As a result, the thickness of the PA film was reduced from ∼92 nm to ∼37 nm through the optimization of SDS and TMC concentrations, and accordingly, the CO2 permeance was increased from 501 GPU to 1498 GPU under 0.1 MPa without sacrificing selectivity. Moreover, the membrane preparation efficiency was greatly improved with an IP reaction time of less than 30 seconds. The insights provided could promote the industrial application of interfacial polymerization in the scale-up preparation of high-performance CO2 separation membranes.