Microporous Ceramic Membrane and Its Gas Separation Performance

Separation with synthetic membrane have become increasingly important processes in many fields. In the most application of membrane process, polymer membrane is used. the main advantage of polymers as a material for membrane preparation is the relative simplicity of this film formation which enables one to obtain rather high permeability rates. However, polymeric membranes have several limitations, such as high temperature instability, swelling and decomposition in organic solvent, et. al.. These limitations can be overcome by inorganic membrane. At the present time, commercially available inorganic membranes have pore diameters ranging 5nm to 50mm, and the predominant flow regime in such membrane is Knudsen diffusion. Since the Knudsen permeability is directly proportional to the molecular velocity, gases can be separated due to their molecular masses. However, this separation mechanism is only of important for light gases such as H2 and He. Other separation mechanisms like surface diffusion, active diffusion can play an important role only with very small pore diameters(2nm) and give rise to large permselectivities. Therefore, preparation of inorganic membrane with nano-sized pore have been attracting more and more attention.