The effects of global warming are becoming more serious, and there is a strong demand for technological advances to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Hydrogen is an ideal clean energy which produces water when burned. To promote the use of hydrogen energy, it is essential to develop safe, energy-saving technologies for hydrogen production and storage. Currently, hydrogen is made from natural gas, so it is not appropriate for decarbonization. Using a lot of energy to separate hydrogen would not make it qualify as clean energy.
Polymer separation membranes have the great advantage of enlarging the separation membrane and increasing the separation coefficient. However, the speed of permeation through the membrane is extremely low, and high pressure must be applied to increase the permeation speed. Therefore, a large amount of energy is required for separation using a polymer separation membrane. The goal is to create a new kind of separation membrane technology that can achieve separation speeds that are 50 times faster than that of conventional separation membranes.
The graphene-wrapped molecular-sieving membrane prepared in this study has a separation factor of 245 and a permeation coefficient of 5.8 x 106 barrers, which is more than 100 times better than that of conventional polymer separation membranes. If the size of the separation membrane is increased in the future, it is very probable that an energy-saving separation process will be established for the separation of important gases such as carbon dioxide and oxygen as well as hydrogen.
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