Synthesis of AgCl/PMMA hybrid membranes and their sorption performance of cyclohexane/cyclohexene

AgCl//PMMA organic–inorganic hybrid membrane has been fabricated by reverse microemulsion polymerization using methyl methacrylate (MMA) as oil phase. The membrane structure is analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), which shows that core–shell organic–inorganic hybrid materials are formed with AgCl as the core and PMMA as the shell. AgCl particulate under 2 μm are uniformly dispersed in the PMMA. The swelling-sorption behavior of the cyclohexane and cyclohexene in AgCl//PMMA hybrid membrane are measured, the result indicates that the sorption capacity of cyclohexene in the hybrid membrane is enlarged comparing with pure PMMA membrane, but the sorption behavior of cyclohexane is less changed. The equilibrium swelling-sorption amount (A∞) ratio of cyclohexene to cyclohexane in membranes was up to 130.4, which was larger than that in the pure PMMA membranes of 54.7.