PIM-1-Derived Carbon Molecular Sieve Membranes for Organic Solvent Reverse Osmosis

Chemical refining primarily utilizes energy-intensive separation technologies such as distillation to differentiate between organic molecules. Utilization of membrane-based organic solvent separations—that avoid phase changes during separation—could revolutionize the field by enabling new low-energy, low carbon emission technologies. However, existing polymeric membrane materials are unable to achieve the separation efficiency required to differentiate between very similarly sized organic molecules like isomers. Carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes possess both high separation capability and solution processable precursors that allow them to be fabricated into pressure-resistant membrane morphologies needed for separating highly non-ideal solutions. In this work, microporous hollow fiber membranes made from PIM-1 are used as the polymeric CMS precursor. The resulting hollow fiber membranes are then utilized for the proof-of-concept reverse osmosis separation of hydrocarbon liquids.