Towards the Preparation of Ordered Mesoporous Carbon/Carbon Composite Membranes for Gas Separation

Abstract

Carbon/carbon composite membranes (CCMs) were made using the blend of polyimide with ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) as precursor at a pyrolysis temperature of 650°C. The thermal stability of precursors, the structure evolution, and the morphology and gas separation performance of CCMs were investigated. The results have shown that the CCMs are one of the most attractive membrane materials for gas separation. The thermal stability of the precursor is improved by the addition of OMC. OMC can tightly embed in the membrane matrix due to the carbonaceous homology of matrix. As a result of the addition of OMC into carbon membranes, the gas permeability of O₂ increases ten times, together with the O₂/N₂ selectivity significantly boosting from 10.3 to 12.9.

Keywords:

• carbon membrane
• gas separation
• ordered mesoporous carbon
• permeation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful for the financial support of this work from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20906063), the Liaoning Natural Science Foundation of China (20102170), the Program for Liaoning Excellent Talents in University (LJQ2012010), and the State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals (KF1107).

Notes

Note: ^a 1 Barrer=1 × 10⁻¹⁰ cm³ (STP) cm/cm² s cmHg = 7.5 × 10⁻⁵ cm³ (STP) cm/cm² s kPa.

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