Influence of flexible oligo(tetrafluoroethene) segment on the sorption and diffusion of carbon dioxide in poly(amide‐imide) membranes

Molecular simulations have been used to study the sorption and diffusion properties of carbon dioxide in a series of poly (amide‐imide) (PAI) membranes containing oligo(tetrafluoroethene) segment with various numbers (n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4) of tetrafluoroethene units. The solubility and self‐diffusion coefficients were computed by the Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) method and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations respectively. It was found that increasing the fluorine content of the polymer membrane reduced the associated glass transition temperature (T_g) and led to an increase in diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide. Results indicate that penetrant molecule's diffusion coefficient is strongly dependent on chain mobility. It is also noticed that the radial distribution functions (RDFs) are inconsistent with the d‐spacings of PAIs calculated form X‐ray data. This is also thought to be tied to the number of degrees of freedom of the chain. Finally, this study gives a useful insight into how PAIs with high fluorine content can be tailored with a high permeability to carbon dioxide. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011