title: Designing ultrathin film composite membranes: the impact of a gutter layer.
abstract: Industrial membranes comprised of a thin selective layer (<100 nm) requires a gutter layer (<100 nm) between the selective layer and the porous support to achieve high permeance for gas separation. The gutter layer materials must be carefully chosen to enhance overall membrane performance, i.e., high permeance and high selectivity. However, the experimental determination of the optimum gutter layer properties is very challenging. Herein we address this need using a three dimensional (3D) computational model to systematically determine the effects of the gutter layer thickness and permeability on membrane performance. A key finding is that the introduction of a gutter layer between the selective layer and porous support can enhance the overall permeance of the penetrant by up to an order of magnitude, but this gain is accompanied by an undesired decrease in selectivity. The analysis also shows for the first time that a maximum increase in permeance with negligible decrease in selectivity is realized when the thickness of the gutter layer is 1-2 times the pore radius. The modeling approach provides clear and practical guidelines for designing ultrathin multilayer composite membranes to achieve high permeance and selectivity for low-cost and energy-efficient molecular separations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Moon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kattula
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Koushik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ponnuru
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Lingxiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Weiguang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Haiqing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.|Department of Electrical Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Edward P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Furlani