Biopolymers for sustainable membranes in CO2 separation: a review

Currently, the continuous research on new membrane technologies is oriented to find new solutions, including the use of environmentally friendly materials, for the preparation of polymeric membranes and their utilization in gas separation keeping a particular focus at the circular economy approach. In particular, membrane processes applied to CO2 separation represents today an intensified and alternative process to the conventional operations, offering several advantages such as lower energy consumption and reduced plant volume as foreseen by the process intensification strategy. Furthermore, the utilization of biopolymers as membrane materials could be combined with the exploitation of raw feedstocks in the optic of carbon footprint reduction. Pursuing the principles of the green process engineering, CO2 separation using biopolymers based membranes may represent a new paradigm for realizing a whole environmentally friendly process. This review aims to emphasize the role of new bio-materials in preparing membranes useful for fuel processing and, in particular, for CO2 capture, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of their adoption with respect to the traditional classes of polymeric membranes.