Characterization of Ceramic Membrane for Gas Separation

• Main Author: Nur Liyana Binti Jalaludin, Nur Liyana
• Format: Final Year Project
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2011
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/471/

Ceramic membranes, also described as permselective barrier or fine sieve, consist of several layers of one or more different ceramic materials. The support layer is first prepared followed by the intermediate layers that act as a bridge due to the pore size differences between the support layer and top layer, and lastly the top layer where the separation process occur. The commonly used materials for the support and intermediate layers is aluminium oxides, Al2O3 where the more specific term used to describe each layer due to its pore size difference are α-alumina and ϒ-alumina, respectively. While, the microporous silica layer is the top layer. Based on the literature review, sol-gel modification method is preferable to prepare the silica membranes because it provides good selectivity and permeability. To carry out the sol-gel modification, dip-coating method is used. For this project, tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) is used as the inorganic silica precursor. However it is found that the silica membranes suffer from hydrothermally unstable that is due to its hydrophilic nature. Hence, the objective of this project is to improve the silica membranes using an organic template vinyltriethoxysilane (VTES or also known as TVES) which is also used to control the pore size of the microporous silica membrane. The research methodology of this project consists of preparation of the standard and modified silica membranes and followed by characterization of the membranes prepared. The characterization is important to see the difference between the standard and modified silica membranes which the modified silica membrane is expected to have a higher pore volume and narrower pore size distribution. Thus, with this result modification of the silica membrane is expected to give better selectivity and permeability towards separating the hydrogen gas.