Carbon-Ceramic Composite Membranes for High-Temperature Gas Separation

该项目将开发一种创新、有效、经济的高温高压气体净化工艺。这将促进国内煤炭储量的成本效益利用。这一目标将通过开发一种新型碳分子筛-陶瓷复合膜来实现。在大孔陶瓷支架中形成的碳分子筛具有独特的化学和物理性质，可以很容易地结合到现有的陶瓷膜颗粒去除系统中，从而提供相对清洁的、来自热煤气的浓缩氢气。在过去的三十年里，由于不对称聚合物膜的发展，气体混合物的膜分离已经得到了广泛的应用。这是因为膜基气体分离工艺的运行成本相对较低。然而，由于缺乏能够承受高温的膜系统，其利用仅限于低温系统。在过去的几年里，已经开发出了许多能够承受高温的陶瓷膜，但是它们不适合用于气体分离，因为它们包含的通道太大而无法分离气体分子。在这个项目中，一个有组织的碳结构将在一个商业上成功的陶瓷膜的通道内形成。沉积的碳将像筛子一样选择性地通过氢分子，同时拒绝较大的分子。制造这些膜的过程很便宜。这种膜的许多可能的应用之一是将煤转化为气体燃料，这种方式将允许从最终产品中经济地分离含硫化合物。

This project will develop an innovative, effective, and economic process for high temperature, high pressure gas cleanup. This will promote the cost effective utilization of domestic coal reserves. This objective will be achieved by the development of a novel carbon molecular sieve-ceramic composite membrane. The unique chemical and physical properties of carbon molecular sieves formed interstitially in a macroporous ceramic support offers the potential of facile incorporation into existing ceramic membrane-based particulate removal systems to provide relatively clean, concentrated hydrogen from hot coal gas. Membrane separations for gaseous mixtures have become wide spread since the development of asymmetric polymer membranes over the last three decades. This is because of the relatively low operating costs for a membrane-based gas separation process. Utilization has been limited to low temperature systems, however, because of the lack of membrane systems capable of withstanding high temperatures. A number of ceramic membranes, capable of withstanding high temperatures, have been developed in the last few years, but they are not suitable for gas separations because the channels they contain are too large to separate gas molecules. In this project an organized carbon structure will be formed inside of the channels of one of the commercially successful ceramic membranes. The deposited carbon will act like a sieve to selectively pass hydrogen molecules while rejecting larger molecules. The process for making these membranes promises to be inexpensive. One of the many possible applications of such a membrane is the conversion of coal to gaseous fuels in a manner which would allow an economical separation of sulfur compounds from the final product.