Due to environmental, operational and economic impacts of acid gases such as CO₂, H₂S, NO_x and SO_x, development of new separation technologies with enhanced efficiency and low capital cost is an emerging demand in the near future. Membrane separation process is considered a promising technology for gas removal and recovery owing to its reasonable cost, good selectivity and lower environmental impact. The development of innovative membranes having both high gas permeance and selectivity becomes very important.

The idea of the proposed project is to use a self-assembled hemispherical nanowell array to preparation of a new membrane design for gas separation. Highly permeable polymers will be used to preparation of controllable size nanowell structure; membrane selectivity will be enhanced by deposition of (1) ionic liquid or (2) different type of polymer into nanowell array. Moreover, the mechanisms of gas transport through novel membranes with nanowell structure as well as the possible interactions between polymer matrix and ionic liquid will be elucidated in this project.