Fabrication and Characterization of Nanocellulose-PVAm, Hydrophilic Membranes for CO2 Separation

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission is currently one the main global issues that draws a large amount of attentions by scientists and researchers. Among different strategies for tackling this obstacle, Gas separation membranes are one of the recently proposed solutions for CO2 separation. Membrane due to its ability to control the permeation of different species could be an appropriate technology to recover CO2 molecules as the permeant. Between different categories of membranes, the hydrophilic facilitated transport membranes are the focus on this research; they are indeed a very promising to overcome the limitations imposed by the trade-off between selectivity and permeability which is typical of solution diffusion membrane. In particular, membranes based on carboxymethylated Nanocellulose (as the structural support) and Polyvinylamine (as the functional fixed carrier) are considered form by blending the two components with different ratio. In addition in order to further improve membrane properties also a mobile carrier, L –arginine, was added to the system. Therefore films of different concentration of Nanocellulose and Polyvinylamine with different amount of L-arginine were produced and tested. The fabrication of membranes had been implemented by developing a specific protocol that was respected for all types of membranes. Afterwards, we dedicated some tests in order to characterization of the films. The water sorption test, FTIR and water dipping are the selected tests for controlling and characterizing the prepared samples. Based on preliminary results, it was possible to optimize the film composition as well as the production protocols for fabricating membrane with better performances of separation process