Carbon membranes as a promising candidate for energy-efficient gas separation processes have been studied for more than 20 years. This chapter describes the status and perspectives of both self-supported and supported carbon membranes. The key steps on the development of high performance hollow-fiber carbon membranes are discussed, including precursor selection, tuning carbon membrane structure, and regeneration. The module design and continuous carbonization process are pointed out to be the main challenges related to upscaling. Supported carbon membranes open new opportunities for high-temperature and high-pressure applications. The main challenges of supported carbon membranes are the lower packing density and relatively high production cost compared to the self-supported hollow-fiber carbon membranes - this directs their applications more towards the medium to small gas volume processes. Finally, the potential applications of carbon membranes are also briefly mentioned. The recovery of hydrogen from various gas streams may become a major application, as well as olefin-paraffin separation, but also removal of CO₂ from natural gas or biogas (CO₂-CH₄ separation) has a very nice potential. The carbon membranes show great potentials in gas separation applications with the possibility of tailoring/controlling the membrane pore size on a molecular sieving level.

Chapter Contents:

• Abstract
• 14.1 Introduction
• 14.2 Hollow-fiber carbon membranes
• 14.2.1 Preparation of precursor
• 14.2.2 Carbonization and regeneration
• 14.2.3 Challenges of scaling up
• 14.2.4 Sample applications
• 14.2.4.1 Hydrogen separation from different gas mixtures
• 14.2.4.2 Olefin/paraffin separation
• 14.2.4.3 CO2/CH4 separation
• 14.3 Supported carbon membranes
• 14.3.1 Preparation
• 14.3.2 Status of development
• 14.3.3 Sample applications
• 14.4 Conclusions
• List of acronyms
• References

Inspec keywords: separation; gases; carbon; biofuel; hydrogen; natural gas technology; membranes

Other keywords: gas streams; hydrogen recovery; CO2-CH4 separation; high-pressure applications; lower packing density; natural gas; high-temperature applications; precursor selection; hollow-fiber carbon membrane development; carbon-based membranes; carbon membrane structure tuning; CO2 removal; olefin-paraffin separation; carbon membrane regeneration; energy-efficient gas separation processes; biogas; carbonization process; self-supported carbon membranes

Subjects: Industrial processes; Biotechnology industry; Mining, oil drilling and natural gas industries