Fabrication of Porous Liquids for Gas Separation

A novel method based on the surface engineering of hollow nanoarchitectures with desirable corona and canopy species is developed for the fabrication of a class of porous liquids with empty cavities. The high flexibility and compatibility of this synthetic strategy enables broad tunability of the hybrid systems with desired functionality for specific applications. For example, different kinds of hollow nanostructures can be used as the building blocks, such as hollow silica spheres, carbon nanospheres, polymer spheres, Pd nanocages and porous organic cages; Or, molecular engineering the chemical structure of corona and canopy can optimize the performance of porous liquid in a certain application. In this invention, we synthesized a porous liquid based on hollow silica spheres in a poly(ethylene glycol)-tailed sulfonate matrix. We demonstrated that this porous material can function as a promising material for gas separation, by taking advantage of the liquid-like polymeric matrix as a selective separation medium and the empty cavities as a pathway for enhanced gas transport.

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