(586e) Gas Separation Membrane Innovation at Air Liquide

Currently, Air Liquide’s gas separation membranes are utilized on land, air, and sea. On land, Air Liquide’s membrane products produce purified nitrogen, hydrogen, natural gas and biomethane. At sea, Air Liquide’s membranes provide nitrogen blanketing, on-site fuel generation and natural gas purification. In the air, Air Liquide’s OBIGGS (On Board Inert Gas Generating Systems) membranes provide enhanced safety by inerting fuel tanks for commercial and military aircrafts.

Although tremendous progress has been made for industrial applications, polymeric gas separation membranes with robust performance towards real gas feed streams and improved gas selectivities are still critically needed. In the last 10 years, Air Liquide has rolled out two innovative gas separation membrane platforms: PEEK-Sep, poly(ether ether ketone) based membranes, and PIX, polyimide based membranes. PEEK-Sep membranes are robust for purifying feed gases from almost all contaminants, and PIX membranes demonstrate exceptional high gas separation selectivities. The platform generated by combining PEEK-Sep and PIX technologies has significantly simplified the gas separation membrane process scheme and made it much more competitive towards cryogenic, and adsorption separations. This talk will briefly review the development of the two membrane platforms and discuss their applications for natural gas and biogas purifications. We emphasize the importance of achieving contaminant resistance and high gas separation selectivity as two key elements for next generation membrane development.