Membranes are attractive for upgrading natural gas; however, the gas permeation processes through membranes are challenging to control. The coexistence of condensable H₂S and CO₂ typically causes membrane performance to decline under practical feed conditions, due to uncontrolled penetrant competition and undesired plasticization of the membrane polymer matrix. In this paper, we report a strategy to successfully transform these apparent negatives, i.e. plasticization and penetrant competition, into positives that boost the natural gas sweetening efficiency of membranes greatly. Our strategy is to disperse engineered metal organic framework (MOF) fillers into designed polymer matrices to form hybrid membranes, which promote the permeation of both H₂S and CO₂ but hinder CH₄ permeation. Moreover, uniformly dispersed MOF fillers also significantly alter the plasticization responses of polymer matrices, enabling controlled plasticization benefits. Ultimately, we illustrate a highly tunable MOF-polymer hybrid membrane platform that meets the diverse natural gas sweetening requirements under aggressive conditions.

膜对提纯天然气具有吸引力。然而，通过膜的气体渗透过程难以控制。由于不可控的渗透剂竞争和膜聚合物基质的不希望的增塑作用，可冷凝的H ₂ S和CO ₂的共存通常会导致膜性能在实际进料条件下下降。在本文中，我们报告了一种策略，可以成功地将这些明显的负面影响（即增塑和渗透剂竞争）转化为正面影响，从而大大提高膜的天然气脱硫效率。我们的策略是将工程金属有机骨架（MOF）填料分散到设计的聚合物基体中以形成杂化膜，从而促进H ₂ S和CO的渗透₂但阻碍CH ₄渗透。此外，均匀分散的MOF填料还可以显着改变聚合物基体的增塑响应，从而实现可控的增塑效益。最终，我们说明了一个高度可调的MOF-聚合物混合膜平台，该平台可以满足苛刻条件下各种多样的天然气脱硫要求。