BIOCOMEM Bio-based copolymers for membrane end products for gas separations

Summary

The main objective of the BIOCOMEM is to develop and validate gas separation membranes at TRL 5 using bio-based polyether-block-amide copolymers (PEBAs) specially designed to give: higher processability into monolithic hollow fiber membrane; higher gas separation performance, higher resistance to chemical attack (aging), higher bio-based content.
The project will start with a bio-based PEBA copolymer (A, Reference bio-PEBA) that is already avaible from Arkema at TRL8 and shows (at TRL3 - dense flat sheet membrane) better gas permeation properties than the fossil fuel counterparts (PEBAX® MV 1074 and PEBAX® MH1657). Several synthesis pathways will be followed to further improve the properties and gain the necessary added value for market competitiveness. The modification of the chemical structure will be done systematically with the purpose to fully understand the relation between the chemical structure, morphology and properties. In one research line (B, New bio-PEBAs Pathway 1) the polyether block will be kept constant, the same as for the reference bio-PEBA, and only the polyamide block will be modified using bio- based monomers with aromatic/cycloaliphatic structure. The main objective of the first research line is to induce spinnability by making polymers with better solubility keeping at least similar mechanical properties compared to the reference polymer. In a parallel research line (C, New bio-PEBAs Pathway 2), the polyamide part will be kept constant as for the reference bio-PEBA (i.e. poly(11-undecanoic acid)), and the chemical structure of the polyether block will be modified using monomers derived from lignin as a starting point to connect hydrophilic chains. The second research line will produce a polyamide-polyether block copolymer with bio-based components in both blocks and the processability into monolithic hollow fiber membranes will be evaluated.

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Web resources:	https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/887075
Start date:	01-06-2020
End date:	30-11-2023
Total budget - Public funding:	3 104 512,00 Euro - 2 353 438,00 Euro

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Original description

The main objective of the BIOCOMEM is to develop and validate gas separation membranes at TRL 5 using bio- based polyether-block-amide copolymers (PEBAs) specially designed to give: higher processability into monolithic hollow fiber membrane; higher gas separation performance, higher resistance to chemical attack (aging), higher bio- based content.
The project started with a bio-based PEBA copolymer (A, Reference bio-PEBA) that is already avaible from Arkema at TRL8 and shows (at TRL3 - dense flat sheet membrane) better gas permeation properties than the fossil fuel counterparts (PEBAX® MV 1074 and PEBAX® MH1657). Several synthesis pathways were followed to further improve the properties and gain the necessary added value for market competitiveness. The modification of the chemical structure was done systematically with the purpose to fully understand the relation between the chemical structure, morphology and properties. In one research line (B, New bio-PEBAs Pathway 1) the polyether block was be kept constant, the same as for the reference bio-PEBA, and only the polyamide block was modified using bio- based monomers with aromatic/cycloaliphatic structure. The main objective of the first research line was to induce spinnability by making polymers with better solubility keeping at least similar mechanical properties compared to the reference polymer. In a parallel research line (C, New bio-PEBAs Pathway 2), the polyamide part was kept constant as for the reference bio-PEBA (i.e. poly(11-undecanoic acid)), and the chemical structure of the polyether block was modified using monomers derived from lignin as a starting point to connect hydrophilic chains. The objective of the second research line is to produce a polyamide-polyether block copolymer with bio-based components in both blocks and the processability into monolithic hollow fiber membranes was evaluated. At M18 it was demonstrated lignin-polyether-block-PA11 PEBAs could not be prepared successfully. Therefore, a modified prototype C was developed by copolymerization of a biobased polyamide synthesized from diethyl sebacate, diethyl galactarate (GalX) and 1,10-diaminodecane with a commercial, biobased poly(1,3 propanediol) polyether derived from starch (Velvetol®).