Natural gas dehydration membranes prepared by incorporating environmentally friendly metal-organic framework MIP-202 into polyetherimide

Using porous materials to selectively adsorb H 2 O from natural gas is a promising method to dehydrate methane (CH 4 ). The structure of a Zirconium metal-organic framework (Zr-MOF), namely, MIP-202, features a high density of amino groups, which can produce strong hydrogen bonding with H 2 O molecules. MIP-202 is cost-effective, green and scalable, and it exhibits good chemical stability under various conditions. This work incorporated MIP-202 nanoparticles into the high permeability polymer polyetherimide (PEI), and the obtained Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs) was used for the gas separation of H 2 O/CH 4 . It is found that MMMs loaded with 20 wt% of MIP-202 demonstrated a high H 2 O/CH 4 selectivity of 832.2, which was about 760 times of that of the pure PEI. This approach offers a new route to fabricate functional membranes for energy-efficient gas separations.