experimental investigation on co2 and ch4 gas separation using speek/pva/zno polymer nanocomposite membranes for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and environmental improvement

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a critical environmental challenge, with fossil fuel consumption and deforestation as major contributors to rising co2 levels. membrane-based gas separation has emerged as a promising technology due to its low energy requirements, compact design, and environmental compatibility. in this study, a novel sulfonated polyether ether ketone (speek)/polyvinyl alcohol (pva)/zinc oxide (zno) nanocomposite membrane was fabricated and evaluated for co2/ch4 separation. the incorporation of zno nanoparticles into the speek/pva matrix was optimized to achieve uniform dispersion, enhancing both permeability and stability. characterization by sem, ft-ir, xrd, afm, and tga confirmed the successful integration of zno nanoparticles and demonstrated favorable structural and thermal properties. the speek (70 %)/pva (28 %)/zno (2 %) membrane exhibited a co2 permeability of 40–60 barrer with co2 /ch₄ selectivity of 20–25, representing an effective balance of transport and selectivity. compared to state-of-the-art membranes such as pebax/peg/sio2 and matrimid/zif-8, the proposed membrane delivers comparable separation performance at significantly lower production costs (≈7.5–8.5 usd/m²), highlighting its industrial scalability and economic advantage. in addition, artificial neural network (ann) modeling using a multilayer perceptron (mlp) with the levenberg–marquardt algorithm achieved excellent predictive accuracy (r² = 0.9999), confirming strong agreement between experimental and predicted values. this combined experimental and modeling approach demonstrates the potential of speek/pva/zno membranes as cost-effective, high-performance candidates for co2 capture and natural gas purification.