A mixed matrix membrane for enhanced CO2/N2 separation via aligning hierarchical porous zeolite with a polyethersulfone based comb-like polymer

l A PES based mixed matrix membrane was prepared for CO2/N2 separation. l A PES-g-PEG comb-like copolymer was used to tune the interfacial interaction. l A hierarchical porous Pillared MFI zeolite was used to improve gas permeation. l A 20wt% loading of PMFI zeolite can be achieved without agglomeration. l The optimized CO2 permeability is 66.9 barrer with a selectivity of 9.6. Mixed matrix membranes (MMM)s for CO 2 /N 2 separation still suffer from interfacial defects. To address this, a series of MMMs were prepared using polyethersulfone-g-poly (ethylene glycol) (PES-g-PEG) comb-like copolymer to tune the interfacial interaction with a pillared MFI (PMFI) zeolite nanosheets, which has a hierarchical porous structure to improve permeance. The composite membranes were examined by SEM, EDX and XRD. The dependence of gas permeabilities, diffusion and solubility coefficients of CO 2 and N 2 were determined by the time-lag method. The increase in PMFI zeolite loading led to an increase in the permeability coefficient of CO 2, which is mainly caused by the increase in CO 2 diffusion coefficient. The CO 2 /N 2 gas separation was optimized at a loading of 20wt% PMFI zeolite, which produces a composite membrane with a CO 2 permeability of 66.9 Barrer and an ideal permeability selectivity coefficient of 9.6. We reported a mixed matrix membrane with amphiphilic polyethersulfone grafted polyethylene glycol (PES-g-PEG) comb-like copolymer as matrix and pillared MFI zeolite nanosheets which acted as transfer channels for enhancing CO 2 permeability. .