Scale-up of high performance mordenite membranes for dehydration of water-acetic acid mixtures

• Published in: Journal of membrane science 2018-10, Vol.564, p.174-183
• Main Authors: Li, Yuqin, Zhu, Meihua, Hu, Na, Zhang, Fei, Wu, Ting, Chen, Xiangshu, Kita, Hidetoshi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dehydration; Mordenite membrane; Reproducibility; Scale-up; Stability
• ISSN: 0376-7388; 1873-3123
• DOI: 10.1016/j.memsci.2018.07.024

Mordenite membranes have been successfully synthesized on 80-cm-long mullite supports by secondary growth method. The morphology and quality of mordenite membrane were greatly affected by fluoride concentration, water content and crystallization mode. Compact and high-flux mordenite membranes were obtained with the addition of NaF in precursor gel, which also exhibited a long-term acid stability for a 90 wt% HAc/H2O mixture at 75 °C. Typically, 80-cm-long mordenite membrane prepared with transverse crystallization displayed a permeation flux of ca. 0.97 kg m−2 h−1 and separation factor of ca. 1200 for separating a 90 wt% HAc/H2O mixture at 75 °C. The pervaporation performance was better than that of membranes prepared with vertical crystallization due to the negligible impact of gravity and temperature gradients. These scaled-up mordenite membranes with high reproducibility showed a promising industrial application for dehydration of water-acetic acid mixtures. [Display omitted] •Mordenite membranes with 80 cm long were rapidly fabricated on macroporous mullite supports.•The scaled-up mordenite membrane prepared with transverse crystallization displayed excellent pervaporation performance.•These 80-cm-long mordenite membranes showed high reproducibility.