Zeolite MFI Membranes Towards Industrial Applications

Abstract

Zeolite membranes have been the interest of research for decades due to their potentials in various separation applications including gas separation, water purification, pervaporation, etc. Among the zeolite materials studied, MFI zeolite (Silicalite-1 and ZSM-5) is one of the major subjects of research, mainly because of its suitability for the separation of hydrocarbons, such as n-butane from iso-butane and para-xylene from its isomers. Besides, all-silica Silicalite-1 and high-silica ZSM-5 have been explored for organic/water pervaporation as well by utilizing their high hydrophobicity. Despite years of research efforts on these applications, the industrialization of MFI membranes has not been achieved. One reason is that the cost associated with the fabrication of these membranes is too high to be commercially attractive. The high-cost, specially engineered silica membrane supports account for a major share of the total cost. Alternative supports such as polymeric supports and low-cost and commercially available alumina supports are possible substitutes to explore. Another problem is the lack of demonstration of high membrane separation performance at industrially relevant conditions (high temperature and high pressure). It is thus the goal of this thesis to address these problems and make progress towards the commercialization of MFI membranes. First, the recent advances of MFI zeolite membranes were reviewed. Then, the fabrication of high-performance MFI membranes using aqueous dispersions of open-pore, two-dimensional MFI zeolite nanosheets on low-cost polymeric substrates was demonstrated. Next, progress towards making MFI membranes on alumina supports has been made. Despite these efforts to use other supports, we failed to make high-performance membranes as comparable to the silica-supported ones. Besides these efforts, ultra-thin MFI membranes fabricated using dc-5 nanosheets as seeds were showed to have high xylene isomer separation performance at industrial conditions and high performance for H2/hydrocarbons separation and ammonia/H2/N2 separation. These works demonstrated the potential of high-performance MFI membranes for energy-efficient separation processes in industrial conditions.