Finely Tuning the Free Volume Architecture in Iptycene-Containing Polyimides for Highly Selective and Fast Hydrogen Transport

Iptycene-based polyimides have attracted extensive attention recently in the membrane gas separation field due to their unique structural hierarchy and chemical characteristics that enable construction of well-defined yet tailorable free volume architecture for fast and selective molecular transport. We report here a new series of iptycene-based polyimides that are exquisitely tuned in the monomer structure to afford preferred microcavity architecture for hydrogen transport. In particular, a triptycene-containing dianhydride (TPDAn) was prepared to react with two iptycene-containing diamines (i.e., TPDAm and PPDAm) or 2,2′-bis­(3-amino-4-hydroxy­phenyl)­hexa­fluoropropane (6FAP) to produce entirely or partially iptycene-based polyimides. The incorporation of iptycene units effectively disrupted chain packing, which resulted in ultrafine microporosity in the membranes with a desired bimodal size distribution with maxima at ∼3 and ∼7 Å, respectively. Depending on the combination of diamine and dianhydride, the microporosity was feasibly tuned and optimized to meet the needs of challenging H₂ separations, especially for H₂/N₂ and H₂/CH₄ gas pairs. Particularly, a H₂ permeability of 27 barrers and H₂/N₂ and H₂/CH₄ selectivities of 142 and 300, respectively, were obtained for TPDAn-6FAP