Membranes based on carbon nanomaterials for CO2 separation

Common industrial technology to separate CO2 is to employ amine solvents in the absorption process. Membrane systems are an attractive alternative because membrane filtration is not energy-intensive and requires no phase transfer in the process. In the last few years, there was an increased interest in graphene and graphene oxide membranes because if employed in combination with functional organic molecules they can be used to produce hybrid membranes. Membranes based on graphene/graphene oxide 2D structures forces gaseous molecules to diffuse along a tortuous path, enhancing in this way their interaction time with active molecules/polymers contained in the interlayer. The possibility to use tailored structures for the embedded functional polymers/molecules allows an improvement of selectivity and thus to overcome also the Roberson’s limits for gas separation.