Purification of Gases Using Nanoporous Inorganic Membranes

The application of membranes has gained acceptance in the chemical and process industries for separation and purification for over three decades and is currently being practiced for natural gas processing, waste water treatment among others. A crack-free composite membrane was employed in this paper. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation was carried out to characterize the membrane. The operational parameters such as feed flow rate, permeation pressure, permeation temperature, kinetic diameter and gas molecular characteristics are examined at 25 0C to 450 0C and 0.05 to 1.0 barg feed pressure. The performance of gas selectivity is also provided. Separation factor of 2.554 was obtained for H2/CO2 at 450 0C and 0.8 barg. Activation energies of 1.0 and 0.42 kJ/mol were also obtained for H2 and CO2/CO/H2 gas mixtures at 1.0 barg.