Journal of membrane science 2024: Vinyl-addition polynorbornenes with glycerol and diethylene glycol moieties: synthesis and structure-property study • A set of new norbornene-type monomers containing linear and branched substituents with three C–O–C fragments was synthesized in good yields from commercially available glycerol and diethylene glycol monomethyl ether.
• As a result of optimizing the reaction conditions, a series of robust thin membranes was successfully prepared directly from the polymerization mixtures in the air.
• Gas separation performance for a wide range of gases was evaluated for the synthesized polymers, and new valuable structure-property relationships were found.
• Such membranes display the facilitated transport of CO
2 and solubility-controlled hydrocarbon separation selectivity. The increase in the amount of C–O–C fragments in side chains enhances these effects, but only in the case of the linear structure of the substituents.
• The facilitated transport of CO
2 is due to the specific dipole-quadrupole interaction between CO
2 molecules and polymer matrix. For the studied polymers, the contribution of this specific interaction to the solubility of CO
2 achieves 64 %.
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