Ethanol/water mixture pervaporation performance of b‐oriented silicalite‐1 membranes made by gel‐free secondary growth |
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| Authors: | Bahman Elyassi Mi Young Jeon Michael Tsapatsis Katabathini Narasimharao Sulaiman Nasir Basahel Shaeel Al‐Thabaiti |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN;2. Dept. of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia |
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| Abstract: | b‐oriented silicalite‐1 membranes on porous silica supports were synthesized using gel‐free secondary growth. The porous silica supports were made by pressing crushed quartz fibers followed by sintering and polishing, and further modified by slip‐coating three layers of Stöber silica particles (1000, 350, and 50 nm). The b‐oriented seed layers were prepared by rubbing silicalite‐1 particles (2 μm × 0.8 μm × 3 μm along a‐, b‐, and c‐axis, respectively) after depositing a polymeric layer on the support. After silicalite‐1 seed deposition, a final coating of spherical silica particles was applied. Well‐intergrown, μm‐thick, b‐oriented membranes were obtained, which, after calcination, exhibited ethanol permselectivity in ethanol/water mixture pervaporation. At 60°C and for ～5 wt % ethanol/water mixtures, the best membrane exhibited overall pervaporation separation factor of 85 (corresponding to membrane intrinsic selectivity of 7.7) and total flux of 2.1 kg/(m2·h). This performance is comparable to the best performing MFI membranes reported in the literature. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 556–563, 2016 |
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| Keywords: | pervaporation zeolite membrane silicalite‐1 gel‐free crystal growth ethanol |
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