Abstract
When polymeric membranes are employed to remove selectively one component from a gaseous mixture, there is generally a trade-off between selectivity and permeability. Data are presented for two polymers of intrinsic,microporosity, PIM-1 and PIM-7, which show a significant advance across the previous upper bound of performance for commercially important gas pairs including O2/N2 and CO2/CH4. The exceptional properties of PIMs arise from,their rigid but contorted molecular structures, which frustrate packing and so create free volume, coupled with chemical functionality giving strong intermolecular interactions.
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