Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SB1-P050
SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGHLY PERMEABLE
POLYIMIDE MEMBRANES CONTAINING TERT-BUTYL GROUPS
Rita del Rosario Sulub Sulub 1 , María Isabel Loría Bastarrachea 1 , Humberto Vázquez Torres 2 ,
José Luis Santiago García 1 , Manuel Aguilar 1
1
Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán, Unidad de Materiales, Mexico. 2 Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana, Departamento de Física, Mexico.
Aromatic polyimides are among the most attractive materials for gas separation
membranes due to their excellent balance of mechanical, thermal, chemical and
electrical properties[1]. However, the main obstacle for polyimides application is
their low permeability, although they possess high selectivity for most gas pairs of
industrial interest. Modification of polyimide backbone by incorporating bulky
groups for gas separation applications have been reported to improve gas
permeability and selectivity in polyimides. These bulky pendant groups make the
structure rigid and simultaneously help to disrupt chain packing reducing local
segmental mobility. They increase fractional free volume (FFV), which results in
improved permeability[2]. In the present work, three new polyimides based on a
new dianhydride 3,8-di(4-tertbutylphenyl)pyrene-1,2,6,7-tetracarboxylic DPt,
containing tert-butyl moieties are reported. The synthesized polyimides exhibit high
thermal stability. The incorporation of a pendant tert-butyl group into the polymer
provided high gas permeability with moderated selectivity. The polyimide formed
DPt and 2,4,6-trimethyl-m-phenylenediamine, DPt-TMPD, showed a very large CO 2
permeability (2035 Barrer) which could be attributed to its inefficient chain packing
due to the incorporation of tert-butyl groups that increased polyimide FFV. The
obtained gas permeability coefficients and gas selectivities are similar to those
reported for PIM-PI polymers.
[1] Y. Liu, Y. Zhang, Q. Lan, S. Liu, Z. Qin, L. Chen, C. Zhao, Z. Chi, J. Xu, J. Economy,
High-performance functional polyimides containing rigid nonplanar conjugated
triphenylethylene moieties, Chem. of Mater. 24 (2012) 1212-1222.
[2] S. Ghosh, D. Bera, P. Bandyopadhyay, S. Banerjee, Effect of introduction of cardo
cyclohexylidene moiety on gas transport properties of fluorinated poly(arylene
ether)s, Eur. Polym. J. 52 (2014) 207-217.
Acknowledgment: Rita Sulub-Sulub gratefully acknowledges a scholarship
CONACYT (Mexico National Council for Science and Technology) under grant
427096. Partial funding by CONACYT-SENER LENERSE II grant 254667.
Keywords: polyimides, highly permeable, tert-butyl groups
Presenting authors email: rita.sulub@cicy.mx