High-efficiency Helium Separation Through Inorganic Graphenylene Membrane: A Theoretical Study

The rising demand of helium resource makes effective separation of helium from natural gas increasingly important in cryogenic industry and welding technology. However, most of the commonly-used membranes cannot efficiently separate helium from small molecules in natural gas. In this work, using first-principles combined with molecular dynamics simulations, we showed efficient separation of helium from natural gas molecules (H2O, CO2, CO, CH4, N2) as well as noble gas molecules (Ne and Ar) can be achieved in the inorganic graphenylene membrane with high selectivities. Especially, molecular dynamics simulations demonstrated that high helium permeance (approximately 10-4 mol /m2 /s /Pa) can be achieved in a wide range of temperature (100 K to 500 K) with high selectivity over other gas molecules. The high permeance and selectivity of the IGP monolayer membrane to helium are quite promising for industrial application.

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