Separation of VOCs from Air through Composite Membranes Prepared by Plasma Polymerization of Hexamethyldisiioxane

Hexamethyldisiioxane의 플라즈마 중합에 의하여 제조된 복합막을 통한 공기중의 휘발성 유기물질의 분리에 관한 연구

1. Introduction : Atmospheric discharge of VOC-contaminated streams in chemical plants and air streams from chemical processes poses a serious environmental problem and entails large financial losses. Such emissions may be reduced by i) adsorption process, ii) absorption process and iii) incineration process. These processes only forbids the air pollutions. Throughout the recent decade, another technique-membrane process has emerged. The separation and recovery of organic vapors by membrane process may have great economic potential. Most of the published research works on the separation of organic vapors from air were performed using silicon rubber membranes. However, it is very difficult to fabricate very thin membranes with less than 1 $u m thickness. Plasma polymerization could be a good technique to generate a thin polymer film. The objective of this work is to find out the optimum condition of plasma polymerization for producing VOC separation membrane. For the objective, composite membranes are prepared through plasma polymerization of hexamethyldisiloxane onto porous substrates under different conditions. The membrane is then subjected to the permeation of permanent gases and VOCs to find the correlations between the physical properties of the penetrant and permeability and selectivity.