Minors: Energy Studies, Engineering Corporate Practice
Faculty Advisor: Rulian Guo, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Areas: Energy Conversion and Efficiency, Sustainable Bio/Fossil Fuels

Crosslinking of PIM-1 with Macrocyclic Crosslinker for Physical Aging Resistance (Spring 2024)

Polymer-based membranes for gas separations represent a great opportunity for reducing cost, energy usage, and CO2 emissions in chemical separation processes. Physical aging is currently one of the primary concerns with using polymers for gas separation. Polymer chain relaxation to approach thermodynamic equilibrium of chain packing causes this physical aging. The primary issue with aged polymers is that they have lower free volume and are more densely packed which corresponds to a permeability drop. The PIM-1 polymer is a representative high-free-volume glassy polymer membrane material, showing ultrahigh permeability and good selectivity. However, PIM-1’s rapid physical aging makes it viewed as imperfect for industry applications. Crosslinking is the current preventative methods for physical aging however, it also causes large permeability losses. The goal of this research is to utilize bulky crosslinkers to minimize these permeability losses due to crosslinking. This is done by introducing macrocyclic crosslinkers with hollow interiors such as beta-cyclodextrin to incorporate permeant free volume elements within the structure.

My role is to execute reactions to perform a Hydrolysis of the linear PIM-1 as well as crosslink the product with beta-cyclodextrin. I will help to create membranes and test them within the gas cell. Finally, I will perform characterization of the membranes such as TGA permeation testing and density measurements.

Final Report