Ir. Dr. Yong Wai Fen and Chemical Engineering Postgraduate Students Publish in Chemical Engineering Journal

The Research and Postgraduate Centre congratulates Soh Leong Sing, Hong Seang Uyin, and Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Yong Wai Fen from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering for the recent article published in Chemical Engineering Journal, an SCI Q1 journal with the latest impact factor of 15.1. 

Entitled “Green solvent-synthesized polyimide membranes for gas separation: Coupling Hansen solubility parameters and synthesis optimization”, this is a collaborative research with Dr. Liang Can Zeng from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). Soh Leong Sing and Hong Seang Uyin published this research work as co-first authors. They are both master’s students under the supervision of Dr. Yong Wai Fen, the corresponding author.

This research is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 22108118), Xiamen University Malaysia Research Fund (grant number: XMUMRF/2021-C8/IENG/0042), and Hengyuan International Sdn. Bhd. (grant number: EENG/0003).

The research employed a green solvent, namely TamiSolve® NxG, to synthesize green polyimide membranes for gas separation. The polyimide membranes developed from the optimized synthesis conditions ameliorated the gas separation performance with more than 30 % increment in O₂ and CO₂ permeabilities without compromising their O₂/N₂, CO₂/N₂, and CO₂/CH₄ selectivities. Much promisingly, the 6FDA-durene membranes exhibited higher CO₂ plasticization pressure of up to 25 bar as compared to conventional membranes. This work is envisaged to generalize the viability of applying green solvents in polymer synthesis to foster insights into both fundamental knowledge and potential implications in sustainable membrane fabrication.