378151 Ultrathin High Flux Membranes: Importance of Microporous Support (original) (raw)

Membrane separation has enjoyed significant growth in the last three decades achieved by continual improvement in membrane separation performance and cost reduction. Industrial membranes are often thin film composites comprised of a thin, dense skin layer (0.1 µm) performing molecular separation and a porous bulk of the membrane (150-200 µm) providing mechanical strength and no resistance to mass transport. As the selective layer is produced thinner to enhance the permeance and thus reduce the capital cost, the geometric structure of the microporous support becomes more important, because the porosity and pore size may restrict the concentration profile of the permeant in the selective layer. There is a crucial need to understand the effect of the support layer on the thin film composite membranes to further increase the competitiveness of the membrane technology over conventional separation technologies such as distillation and absorption. This presentation will discuss the effect ...

Designing ultrathin film composite membranes: the impact of a gutter layer

Scientific reports, 2015

Industrial membranes comprised of a thin selective layer (<100 nm) requires a gutter layer (<100 nm) between the selective layer and the porous support to achieve high permeance for gas separation. The gutter layer materials must be carefully chosen to enhance overall membrane performance, i.e., high permeance and high selectivity. However, the experimental determination of the optimum gutter layer properties is very challenging. Herein we address this need using a three dimensional (3D) computational model to systematically determine the effects of the gutter layer thickness and permeability on membrane performance. A key finding is that the introduction of a gutter layer between the selective layer and porous support can enhance the overall permeance of the penetrant by up to an order of magnitude, but this gain is accompanied by an undesired decrease in selectivity. The analysis also shows for the first time that a maximum increase in permeance with negligible decrease in s...

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