Accelerated Oxygen Mass Transfer in Copper and Vanadium Oxide-Based MIEC-Redox Membrane

Mixed ionic-electronic conducting (MIEC) membranes have a great potential for use in gas separation technology in the production of pure oxygen for metallurgy, micro- and nanoelectronics, biotechnology, pharmaceutics, etc. Before this happens, an important issue has to be addressed. This issue involves the design of novel MIEC membranes with enhanced oxygen transport. Recently, a concept of thick two-layer solid/liquid composite MIEC-Redox membranes with accelerated diffusion-bubbling oxygen transfer was proposed (see Belousov and Fedorov in ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 10:21794-21798, 2018). These diffusion-bubbling membranes could serve for efficient oxygen separation from air. However, there is no enough fundamental understanding of the mass transport processes involved. This understanding is important for evaluating the potential of MIEC-Redox membranes for practical application. The presented article gives a theory of oxygen mass transfer in two-layer copper and vanadium oxide-based MIEC-Redox membranes. The theory describes both the transport of oxygen ions in the outer layer of the membrane and the nucleation, growth, and transport of oxygen gas bubbles in the inner layer of the membrane. Kinetic regularities of oxygen mass transfer are established. The ways to enhance the productivity of MIEC-Redox membranes are outlined.