Molecular Order Determines Gas Transport through Smectic Liquid Crystalline Polymer Membranes with Different Chemical Compositions

Amorphous polymers are often used for gas separation but have a trade-off between permeability and selectivity. Here, the effect of chemical composition temperature on solubility in well-ordered LC polymer membranes is investigated. Membranes with various compositions monomethacrylate (M1) crown ether functionality to enhance CO2 smectic diacrylate (M2) cross-linker were fabricated, while all having same order (smectic C) alignment (planar). Single sorption permeation data show 30 wt % M1 higher coefficient compared without M1, which results For that contain more than decreasing layer spacings lead reduced solubilities result lower permeabilities additional selectivity gain toward CO2. The demonstrated by comparing single below above Tg membranes. diffusion increases increasing content leading selectivities. These not only also spacing structures determines performance