High-performance membranes for gas and liquid applications

Over the past decades, membrane separation systems have already been installed in many energy-intensive separations, but the modest performance of current membranes limits new membrane applications. Developing next-generation membrane materials with ultra-high separation performance is a key to further spread membrane technology and boost the sustainability of separation processes. Conventional membranes often suffer from a permeability/selectivity trade-off, making it extremely challenging to combine high permeability together with sufficient selectivity. To break this limitation, in this dissertation, new membrane platforms with high-resolution separation characteristics are developed for both gas and liquid applications. For this purpose, membranes that possess highly-ordered porous systems together with high porosity were engineered as mean to increase the selectivity and permeability of the membranes, while keeping upscaling potential and long-term stability. Two different high-resolution separation membrane platforms were designed: ultra-high-performance zeolite-filled mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) and green-polymer-based isoporous membranes. These two different membrane systems could overpass the current state-of-the-art membranes in gas separations (e.g. for CO2 removal application) and microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) applications (e.g. for virus removal).