In situ fabrication of high-permeance ZIF-8 tubular membranes in a continuous flow system

A high-permeance ZIF-8 membrane was successfully synthesized on the inner side of a porous hollow fiber ceramic tube in a simple flow system via in situ direct growth method. The continuously pumping fresh nutrients through the inner-surface favor increasing the heterogeneous nucleation of ZIF-8 crystals and the formation of continuous ZIF-8 membrane, thus leading to a high performance ZIF-8 membrane. The achieved ZIF-8 membrane was thin and dense, and has only a thickness of about 2.5 mu m. The membrane demonstrated remarkably high H-2 permeance of 1.9 x 10(-6) mol m(-2) s(-1) and excellent molecular sieving performance with H-2/N-2, and H-2/CH4 ideal selectivities of 12.9 and 15.6, respectively. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.