Synthesis of Silica Membranes on a Porous Stainless Steel by Sol-Gel Method and Effect of Preparation Conditions on Their Permselectivity

A porous stainless steel (SUS) as a substrate of silica composite membranes for hydrogen purification was used to improve mechanical strength of the membranes for industrial application. The SUS support was successfully modified by using submicron Ni powder, $SiO_2$ sols with particle size of 500 nm and 150 nm in turns. Silica top layer was coated on the modified supports under various preparation conditions such as calcination temperature, dipping time and repeating number of dipping-drying process. The calcination temperature for proper sintering was between H ttig temperature and Tamman temperature of the coating materials. Maximum hydrogen selectivity was investigated by changing dipping time. As repeating number of dipping-drying process increased, permeances of nitrogen and hydrogen were decreased and $H_2/N_2$ selectivity was increased due to the reduction of non-selective pinholes and mesopores. For the silica membrane prepared under optimized conditions, permeance of hydrogen was about $3\;{\times}\;10^{-5}\;cm^3{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}{\cdot}cmHg^{-1}$ combined with $H_2/N_2$ seletivity of about 20.