• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.292-303
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• 2022

An eco-friendly energy conversion device without the emission of pollutants has gained much attention due to the rapid use of fossil fuels inducing carbon dioxide emissions ever since the first industrial revolution in the 18th century. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that can produce water during the reaction without the emission of carbon dioxide are promising devices for automotive and residential applications. As a key component of PEMFCs, polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) need to have high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. Currently, perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs (PFSA-PEMs) have been commercialized and utilized in PEMFC systems. Although the PFSA-PEMs are found to meet these criteria, there is an ongoing need to improve these further, to be useful in practical PEMFC operation. In addition, the well-known drawbacks of PFSA-PEMs including low glass transition temperature and high gas crossover need to be improved. Therefore, this review focused on recent trends in the development of high-performance PFSA-PEMs in three different ways. First, control of the side chain of PFSA copolymers can effectively improve the proton conductivity and thermal stability by increasing the ion exchange capacity and polymer crystallinity. Second, the development of composite-type PFSA-PEMs is an effective way to improve proton conductivity and physical stability by incorporating organic/inorganic additives. Finally, the incorporation of porous substrates is also a promising way to develop a thin pore-filling membrane showing low membrane resistance and outstanding durability.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.3348-3354
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• 2011

Oleanolic acid (OA) as template molecule, polyamide-6 (PA6) as basement membrane and poly(styrene-comaleic acid) (PSMA) were used to prepare PA6/PSMA-OA molecularly imprinted composite membranes by phase inversion method in supercritical $CO_2$ ($ScCO_2$). The template molecule (OA), [poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) (PSMAH), PSMA, molecularly imprinted membranes (MIMs) imprinting OA and MIMs after elution were all characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The conditions that were the mass ratio between PSMA and OA from 3:1 to 8:1, temperature of $ScCO_2$ from $35^{\circ}C$ to $50^{\circ}C$ and pressure of $ScCO_2$ 12 MPa to 17 MPa were studied. It was obtained the largest adsorption rate and purity of OA after adsorption of the resultant MIMs, 50.41% and 96.15% respectively. After using PA6 film and non-woven fabrics as basement membrane respectively, it was found that smaller aperture of PA6 was used as basement membrane, a higher adsorption rate and a higher purity of OA after adsorption of the MIMs were obtained, and so were the stability and reproducibility of the resultant MIMs. After template molecules being removed, the MIMs had effective selectivity hydrogen bonding to separately bind in the binary components to the template molecules-oleanolic acid.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.487-498
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• 2017

In this study, pervaporation performances of water/methanol and water/butanol mixture were evaluated using zeolite 4A membranes manufacutred by FINETECH by experimental works and numerical modeling. Permeation and separation characteristics, such as flux and separation factor, were analyzed by gas chromatography (TCD) and liquid nitrogen traps. Experiments have shown that water is selectively separated from a mixture of water and methanol (separation factor up to approximately 250) and water and butanol (separation factor up to approximately 1,500). Generalized Maxwell Stefan (GMS) theory was implemented to predict pervaporation behaviors of water/alcohol mixtures and diffusional coefficients of zeolite layer were obtained through parameter estimation using $MATLAB^{(R)}$ optimization toolbox. Since the pore size of zeolite 4A are much larger than kinetic diameter of water molecules and smaller than those of methanol and butanol, zeolite 4A membranes can be applied to in situ water removal process such as membrane reactors or hybrid reaction-dehydration process.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.499-505
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• 2017

The increasing number of natural disasters resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has prompted the development of a gas separation membrane. Carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) is the main cause of global warming. Organic polymeric membranes with inherent flexibility are good candidates for use in gas separation membranes and poly(dimethyl siloxane)(PDMS) specifically is a promising material due to its inherently high $CO_2$ diffusivity. In addition, poly(vinyl pyrrolidine)(PVP) is a polymer with high $CO_2$ solubility that could be incorporated into a gas separation membrane. In this study, poly(dimethyl siloxane)-poly(vinyl pyrrolidine)(PDMS-PVP) comb copolymers with different compositions were synthesized under mild conditions via a simple one step free radical polymerization. The copolymerization of PDMS and PVP was characterized by FTIR. The morphology and thermal behavior of the produced polymers were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Composite membranes composed of PDMS-PVP on a microporous polysulfone substrate layer were prepared and their $CO_2$ separation properties were subsequently studied. The $CO_2$ permeance and $CO_2/N_2$ selectivity through the PDMS-PVP composite membrane reached 140.6 GPU and 12.0, respectively.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.283-291
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• 2022

Hydrogen energy has received much attention as a solution to the supply of renewable energy and to respond to climate change. Hydrogen is the most suitable candidate of storing unused electric power in a large-capacity long cycle. Among the technologies for producing hydrogen, water electrolysis is known as an eco-friendly hydrogen production technology that produces hydrogen without carbon dioxide generation by water splitting reaction. Membranes in water electrolysis system physically separate the anode and the cathode, but also prevent mixing of generated hydrogen and oxygen gases and facilitate ion transfer to complete circuit. In particular, the key to next-generation anion exchange membrane that can compensate for the shortcomings of conventional water electrolysis technologies is to develop high performance anion exchange membrane. Many studies are conducted to have high ion conductivity and excellent durability in an alkaline environment simultaneously, and various materials are being searched. In this review, we will discuss the research trends and points to move forward by looking at the research on anion exchange membranes based on commercial polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-polystyrene (SEBS) block copolymers.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.94-109
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• 2023

1,3-Dioxolane is an exciting material that has attracted widespread interest in the chemical, paint, and pharmaceutical industries as a solvent, electrolyte, and reagent because 1,3-dioxolane is not toxic, carcinogenic, explosive, auto-flammable, and multifunctional, and due to their excellent miscibility in most organic and aqueous solvent conditions. Recently, this material has received increasing attention as a CO₂-selective polymer precursor to separating CO₂ from flue gas and natural gas mixtures. Poly(1,3-dioxolane) (PDXL) possesses higher ether oxygen content than polyethylene oxide (PEO), which demonstrates superior membrane CO₂/N₂ separation properties owing to their polar ether oxygen groups exhibiting strong affinity toward CO₂. Thus, PDXL-based membranes displayed an outstanding CO₂ solubility selectivity over non-polar (N₂, H₂, and CH₄) gases. However, the polar groups of PDXL, like PEO, promote chain packing efficiency and cause polymer crystallization, thereby reducing its gas permeability, which should be improved. In this short review, we discuss the recent advancement and limitations of PDXL membranes in gas separation applications. To conclude, we provide future perspectives for inhibiting the limits of 1,3-dioxolane-based polymers in the CO₂ separation process.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.128-134
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• 2012

In this study, hydroxy polyimide (HPI) was prepared for non-porous membrane by solvent evaporation method. As the result of gas permeance properties measurement, $CO_2$ permeability was 85 Barrer and the $CO_2/N_2$ selectivity was 23 at $30^{\circ}C$. Flat sheet membrane and hollow fiber membrane were prepared by using ternary system of polymer, solvent and non-solvent additive. Morphologies and gas permeance properties were measured by FE-SEM and bubble flow meter. Each $CO_2$ permeability of 18.28 GPU, 70 GPU and $CO_2/N_2$ selectivity of 6.72, 8.63 at $30^{\circ}C$ in the flat sheet membrane and hollow fiber membrane. Hollow fiber membrane has gas permeance property better than flat sheet membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.280-283
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• 2012

The study is aiming to prepare supported ionic liquid membranes for carbon dioxide separation efficiently. The ionic liquid, [bmim][${PF_6}^-$] (1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium hexafluorophosphate) was fixed in the pores of PVDF micro-filtration membrane with a nominal pore size 0.1 ${\mu}m$. The permeabilities of $N_2$, $H_2$ and $CO_2$ gases through the prepared ionic liquid membrane were 0.075, 0.203 and 1.380 GPU, respectively. The selectivities of $CO_2/N_2$, $H_2/N_2$ were 14.2 and 2.69, respectively. Also, the supported ionic liquid membrane could be operated stably up to 2.0 bar with the immobilization of ionic liquid in the pores.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.60-66
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• 2015

To investigate the performance of the composite carbon electrodes which the ion exchange polymers were directly casted onto porous carbon electrode surfaces, the adsorption/desorption experiments were carried out by varying the feed concentration, feed flow rate, and desorption voltages for the NaCl solution. When the feed concentration was 100 mg/L, the increase of the adsorption time led to the increase of the salt removal due to the increase of the residence time inside the cell while the increase of the feed flow rate from 15 mL/min to 23 mL/min gave the decrease of the salt removal efficiency, 12% because of the short residence time. When the feed concentration was 200 mg/L, the salt removal was shown 10~15% low because of the incomplete desorption within the desorption intervals.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2000

Using fluorescence polarization of 12-(9-anthroyloxy)stearic acid (12-AS) and 2-(9-anthroyloxy)stearic acid (2-AS), we evaluated the differential effects of local anesthetics on differential rotational rate between the surface (in carbon number 2 and its surroundings including the head group) and the hydrocarbon interior (in carbon number 12 and its surroundings) of the outer monolayer of the total lipid fraction liposome extracted from synaptosomal plasma membrane vesicles. The anisotropy (r) values for the hydrocarbon interior and the surface region of the liposome outer monolayer were $0.078{\pm}0.001$ and $0.114{\pm}0.001,$ respectively. This means that the rate of rotational mobility in the hydrocarbon interior is faster than that of the surface region. In a dose-dependent manner, the local anesthetics decreased the anisotropy of 12-AS in the hydrocarbon interior of the liposome outer monolayer but increased the anisotropy of 2-AS in the surface region of the monolayer. These results indicate that local anesthetics have significant disordering effects on the hydrocarbon interior but have significant ordering effects on the surface region of the liposome outer monolayer.