57. Tuning the Surface Properties of Graphene Oxide by Surface-Initiated Polymerization of Epoxides: an Efficient Method for Enhancing Gas Separation
writer:Y. Wu, P. Jia, L. Xu, Z. Chen, L. Xiao, J. Sun, J. Zhang, Y. Huang, C. W. Bielawski, J. Geng,*
keywords:Graphene oxide, Graphene oxide-initiated polymerization, Polyepoxides, Membranes, Gas separation
source:期刊
specific source:ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 4998–5005
Issue time:2017年
Here, we describe an in situ approach for growing polyepoxides from the surfaces of graphene oxide (GO) using a surface-initiated polymerizationreaction. The polymerization methodology is facile and general as a broad range of epoxides carrying various functional groups have been successfully polymerized by simply adding GO powders in the epoxide monomers. The resultant polyepoxide grafted GO are found to show enhanced dispersibility in various common solvents and to exhibit increased d-spacing between the basal planes. In particular, grafting poly(2,3-epoxy-1-propanol) (PEP) to GO results in a composite (i.e., GO-g-PEP) that is dispersible in water and miscible with polyether block amide, i.e., Pebax MH 1657. Preliminary studies have indicated the membranes prepared using Pebax/GO-g-PEP composites exhibit enhanced CO2 permeabilities and selectivities in comparison to H-2, O-2, or N-2. The excellent performance in gas separation is attributed to the layered structure of the GO-g-PEP sheets with enlarged d-spacing and thefunctional groups present on the PEP chains grafted to the surfaces of GO sheets.