Cellulose based Carbon Molecular Sieve Membranes stable to oxygen chemisorption, upon propylene (C3H6) treatment - An INS study on Maps

Carbon molecular sieve membranes (CMSM) are very promising candidates for the purification of gases, including for example the purification of oxygen for medical applications. CMSM exhibit several advantages compared to other membranes, such as higher thermal and chemical resistance and higher permeabilities and selectivities.Our group has been developing cellulose based CMSM with high separation performances. Although these membranes suffer aging and performance degradation after long exposures to air atmosphere, propylene can be used as a cleaning agent to restore their initial properties. However, the mechanism of this cleaning action of propylene is still not well understood.In this work we propose to use Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS), performed on MAPS instrument, to study the effect of the propylene treatments on the surface chemistry of our cellulose based CMSM.