(186e) Utilization Of Nanoplatelet Materials In Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Structures: Formation Challenges And Separation Advantages

Membranes offer attractive alternatives to thermally-driven separations. Polymeric materials have been traditionally used because they offer attractive, low-cost processing. However, industrial demands continue to require more selective and productive membranes. Multi-component membranes utilizing organic and inorganic materials offer opportunities to achieve these goals.

Polymer nanocomposites have received significant attention for many years and have been shown to have improved mechanical and barrier properties. Platelet materials, such as high-aspect ratio clays, have been important in nanocomposite development. When applied to hybrid membranes these materials may offer significant advantages to traditional materials. In barriers, gas transport is drastically retarded because the tortuosity of the diffusion pathway is increased. On the other hand, when selective nanoplatelet sieving materials are used major opportunities exist for producing revolutionary new membranes.

Hybrid membranes for gas separations require precise organic-inorganic morphology to fully utilize the material benefits. Furthermore, incorporating nanoplatelet materials requires a high degree of exfoliation and complete particle dispersion to achieve optimal transport properties. Our work is aimed towards these challenges and their effect on membrane formation. Moreover, we seek to develop solutions that are industrially attractive (minimizing processing times and material costs).

As a first step in this direction, simple impermeable nanoplatelets have been considered. We are using Laponite® RD clays as a model material because they have a desirable aspect ratio (l/d ~ 25) and are synthetically produced with high quality. The next step in this progress will consider gas selective nanoplatelet sieving materials based on aluminophosphates.