Scientists in Japan have made a new class of gas-permeable polymers that could replace the materials currently used to separate gases. Polymer membranes can be used to separate mixtures of gases, for example to separate nitrogen from air or to remove carbon dioxide from natural gas. Different gases travel through a polymer membrane at different speeds because of the varying solubility and diffusivity of the gas within the polymer. Membrane gas separation is much less energy intensive than other gas separation technologies, such as cryogenic distillation.
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