Issue 27, 2024

Retarded O2 transport in Co2+-coordinated supramolecular polymer networks for membrane CO2/O2 separations

Abstract

Dissociated Co2+ ions in liquids and polymers have been demonstrated to reversibly react with O2 and increase O2 permeability. However, we find a series of Co2+-coordinated supramolecular polymer networks (SPNs) with enormous O2 sorption but retarded diffusion, leading to superior CO2/O2 separation properties. Specifically, Co(BF4)2 is dissolved by cross-linked poly(ethylene oxide) (XLPEO), as validated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The dissociated Co2+ ions increase O2/CO2 solubility selectivity but decrease its diffusivity selectivity. For example, adding 6.4 mass% Co(BF4)2 in XLPEO increases O2 solubility by 35 times and O2/CO2 solubility selectivity from 0.12 to 5.0, but it decreases O2/CO2 diffusivity selectivity from 0.40 to 0.0058, leading to a CO2/O2 permeability selectivity of 35, above Robeson's upper bound and superior to that of state-of-the-art polymers. This study unravels an exciting platform of metal ion-coordinated supramolecular networks for various molecular separations by harnessing strong affinity but retarded diffusion despite their stability challenge.

Graphical abstract: Retarded O2 transport in Co2+-coordinated supramolecular polymer networks for membrane CO2/O2 separations

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Apr 2024
Accepted
03 Jun 2024
First published
03 Jun 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2024,12, 16921-16927

Retarded O2 transport in Co2+-coordinated supramolecular polymer networks for membrane CO2/O2 separations

T. Alebrahim, N. Esmaeili, G. Zhang and H. Lin, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2024, 12, 16921 DOI: 10.1039/D4TA02376E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements