The Chemical Research Group has been developing high performance CO₂ separation membranes to reduce the IGCC CO₂ separation and collection costs. This work is based on pressure-resistant composite membranes incorporating dendritic polymers with regular branching structures bearing high-density amino groups. These membranes have applications in the CO₂/H₂ separation process at pressure differences of 2–4 MPa, and may be used in CO₂ separation and capture from shifted syngas in the IGCC process. A conceptual diagram of the CO₂ molecular gate membrane is shown in Figure.
 

The use of this material blocks the permeation of hydrogen gas due to the quasi-crosslinking of CO₂ in the membrane, and therefore allows significantly higher CO₂ selectivity than conventional polymer membranes.

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