Desenvolvimento de membranas de transporte facilitado contendo nanopartículas de prata sintetizadas por irradiação UV para a separação propano/propeno

Abstract

Propene is one of the main raw material from the petrochemical industry obtained alongside with propane, in a gaseous mixture. The separation process more often applied nowadays is the cryogenic distillation, a process highly demanding in energy and capital. Aiming de reduction of operational costs, decreasing in size and high selectivity, the facilitated transport membranes have been studied as a very promising alternative. This work has the intent of developing polymeric facilitated transport membranes containing silver nanoparticles in different concentrations synthesized by UV irradiation in situ in the polymer solution itself. UV-Vis spectrophotometric analysis have revealed that it is possible to control the conversion rate of Ag+ ions into nanoparticles, reaching a maximum conversion of 32.1%. Permeation and sorption tests showed the ability of silver to complex with olefin; membranes containing silver nanoparticles showed ideal selectivity of 675 and selectivity to sorption of 7.9. Long-term tests have shown that propene has an important role in increasing the stability of the membrane since, when it is complexed with olefin, silver does not interact as strongly with the nucleophilic groups of the polymer, increasing its useful life.