PEEK Hollow Fiber Composite Gas Separation Membranes Applied in Minimal Pretreatment and Condensing Environments

Poly(ether ether ketone), PEEK, is a semi-crystalline, high performance engineering polymer, well known for its solvent/chemical resistance and a high temperature operating capability.  The excellent chemical and physical characteristics of PEEK make it an ideal candidate for the preparation of the next generation of polymeric membranes that combine inorganic membrane robustness with polymeric membrane performance and price.  

PEEK hollow fiber membranes were successfully developed and commercialized by melt extrusion of  compatible PEEK/polyimide blend,  . The polyimide in the blend serves as a pore former and is quantitatively removed to produce the target porous PEEK membrane. Membrane morphology and pore size is controlled by the blend composition and processing conditions. The methodology is highly flexible and provides for preparation of both flat sheet and hollow fiber membranes. PEEK exhibits thermo-mechanical properties superior to almost all engineering polymers currently in use in membrane preparation.

A family of composite hollow fiber membranes based on PEEK have been developed and commercialized for variety of natural gas purification applications, such as BTU reduction, H2S and CO2 removal.  PEEK based hollow fiber membranes are extremely robust.  The membrane separation performance is not affected by the presence of organic liquids, such as NGLs.  Only coalescing filter pretreatment is required for all commercial PEEK membrane systems.  The elimination of the extensive pretreatment significantly reduces the capital cost and maintenance cost. One example of the use of the PEEK hollow fiber membrane is for H2S reduction.  Application of the PoroGen™ membrane portfolio to multiple industrial application will be presented.