| Abstract |
Considering the high potential of hydrogen (H-2) as a clean energy carrier, the implementation of high performance and cost-effective biohydrogen (bioH(2)) purification techniques is of vital importance, particularly in fuel cell applications. As membrane technology is a potentially energy-saving solution to obtain high-quality biohydrogen, the most promising poly(ionic liquid) (PIL)-ionic liquid (IL) composite membranes that had previously been studied by our group for CO2/N-2 separation, containing pyrrolidinium-based PILs with fluorinated or cyano-functionalized anions, were chosen as the starting point to explore the potential of PIL-IL membranes for CO2/H-2 separation. The CO2 and H-2 permeation properties at the typical conditions of biohydrogen production (T = 308 K and 100 kPa of feed pressure) were measured and discussed. PIL-IL composites prepared with the [C(CN)(3)](-) anion showed higher CO2/H-2 selectivity than those containing the [NTf2](-) anion. All the membranes revealed CO2/H-2 separation performances above the upper bound for this specific separation, highlighting the composite incorporating 60 wt \% of [C(2)mim][C(CN)(3)] IL. |
