(750b) Polymer Genome: An Open Tool for the Polymer Membrane Community

Predicting polymer permeabilities a priori is a long-standing challenge within the membrane research community that has important applications for membrane process design and ultimately widespread adoption of membrane technology. From early attempts based on free volume and cohesive energy to more recent group contribution methods, the ability to predict membrane permeability has improved in terms of accuracy. However, these models usually stay “within the paper”, i.e., limited model details are provided to the wider community such that adoption of these predictive platforms is limited. In this work, we combined an advanced structure fingerprinting method with a large experimental database of gas permeabilities to give unprecedented prediction ability over a large range of polymer classes. No prior knowledge of the polymer is needed for the prediction other than the repeating unit chemical formula. In addition, we have incorporated this model into the existing Polymer Genome project to make it open to the membrane research community. In this interactive presentation, we will also demonstrate how membrane researchers can benefit from Polymer Genome to design advanced polymer for gas separation as well as accompanying processing parameter predictions.