Boosting membranes for CO2 capture toward industrial decarbonization

Membrane technology for carbon capture is becoming increasingly attractive to combat the excessive greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere, which involves the benefits of cost-effectiveness, environmental-friendly, easy scalability, high energy efficiency, simplicity in design, etc. However, most state-of-the-art membrane materials suffer from either low CO2 permeability, low selectivity towards CO2 separation, poor resistance to plasticization, or inadequate long-term stability, rendering it still challenging to be upscaled to an industrial level. Therefore, the development of advanced membrane materials as well as a reasonable design of the membrane separation process is crucial and urgent for its real-life application in the future. This account reviews the details of some recent research progress in our group on carbon capture from different scenarios including post-combustion carbon capture, biogas upgrading and natural gas sweetening and hydrogen purification. Notably, considerable efforts have been invested in the development of some novel membrane materials in our group, such as facilitated transport membranes, carbon molecular sieving membranes, mixed matrix membranes, composite membranes, and poly(ionic liquids)-based membranes. Meanwhile, some studies focusing on the techno-economic feasibility analysis of membrane technology have also demonstrated its promising application on practical carbon capture. [Display omitted]