NAMS 2002 Workshop - ICOM 2008

Inorganic Membranes II – 4
Thursday July 17, 10:30 AM-11:00 AM, O’ahu/Waialua
High Quality Tubular Silica Membranes for Gas Separation
M. Luiten (Speaker), University of Twente, The Netherlands - m.w.j.luiten@utwente.nl
C. Huiskes, University of Twente, The Netherlands
H. Kruidhof, University of Twente, The Netherlands
A. Nijmeijer, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Highly selective silica membranes have been made on repaired extruded
commercial ±-Al2O3 tubular supports with lengths of 10 and 55 cm. To decrease
the surface roughness of commercial extruded ±- Al2O3 tubular supports
Pervatech (Enter, Netherlands) developed a repairing technology. Silica
membranes coated on the inside of these repaired commercial ±- alumina tubes
(10 resp. 55 cm) have been prepared and analysed by using SEM,
permporometry, XPS and single gas permeance measurements. These
permeance measurements were carried out at temperatures between 100 and
450ºC. The hydrogen permeance (at 450ºC) was around 2x10 -6 mol m -2 s -1 Pa -1
and the permselectivity for hydrogen over light gases was very high; F(H2/CH4) >
1200, F(H2/CO2) >100 and the F(H2/N2) = 250. A long term (>2600 h) permeation
test shows that the permeance of hydrogen (at 200ºC and ΔP=3.8bar) was in the
range of 6-8x10 -7 mol m -2 s -1 Pa -1 . The excellent gas separation performance of
the silica membrane on a tube with a length of 55 cm indicates a large potential
for the future of these membranes as it opens the way for a large number of
industrial applications.