Mechanical stability, ceramic membranes

Mechanical stability - Organic membranes contact and can undergo inelastic deformations under high pressures, leading to lower permeabilities. Ceramic membranes supported on robust materials such as stainless steel or structural ceramics can be expected to withstand very high pressures. 

Ceramic membranes normally have an asymmetrical structure composed of at least two, normally three, different porosity levels. Indeed, before applying the active top layer, a mesoporous intermediate layer is often appHed in order to reduce the surface roughness. A macroporous support ensures mechanical stahility. Ceramic membranes generally show a higher chemical, structural and thermal stability. They do not deform under pressure, do not swell and are deaned easily [13]. 

The ceramic membrane has a great potential and market. It represents a distinct class of inorganic membrane. In particular, metallic coated membranes have many industrial applications. The potential of ceramic membranes in separation, filtration and catalytic reactions has favoured research on synthesis, characterisation and property improvement of inorganic membranes because of their unique features compared with other types of membrane. Much attention has focused on inorganic membranes, which are superior to organic ones in thermal, chemical and mechanical stability and resistance to microbial degradation. 

In Chapter 10, the use of membranes for different applications are described. One of the possible membranes for hydrogen cleaning is an asymmetric membrane comprised of the dense end of a proton conduction perovskite such as BaCe0 95 Yb0 05O3 5 and a porous end to bring mechanical stability to the membrane. In this case, it is possible to take from the slurry, obtained by the acetate procedure, several drops to be released over a porous ceramic membrane, located in the spinning bar of a spin-coating machine. Thereafter, the assembly powder, thin film porous membrane is heated from room temperature up to 1573 K at a rate of 2K/min, kept at this temperature for 12 h, and then cooled at the same rate in order to get the perovskite end film over the porous membrane [50],... 

Mechanical stability against thermal cycling between ambient temperature and Top requires matching of thermal-expansion coefficients of the electrolyte and electrodes, the interconnects, and the seals. Note Ceramic strength is improved where cell design retains the ceramic membrane under a compressive stress. 

Ceramic membranes are proposed as advantageous with respect to resistance toward fouling as compared to organic polymer-based membranes. In this category, zeolite membranes have received considerable attention because of their superior characteristics of thermal, mechanical, chemical, and radiation stability. 

The three components of the fuel cell, anode, cathode, and electrolyte form a membrane-electrolyte assembly, as, by analogy with polymer electrolyte fuel cells, one may regard the thin layer of solid electrolyte as a membrane. Any one of the three membrane-electrode assembly components can be selected as the entire fuel cell s support and made relatively thick (up to 2 mm) in order to provide mechanical stability. The other two components are then applied to this support in a different way as thin layers (tenths of a millimeter). Accordingly, one has anode-supported, electrolyte-supported, and cathode-supported fuel cells. Sometimes though an independent metal or ceramic substrate is used to which, then, the three functional layers are applied. 

Inorganic membranes, usually appUed when high temperatures or chemically active mixtures are involved, are made of ceramics [171,172], zirconia-coated graphite [173],silica-zirconia [174],zeolites [168], or porous glass [175] among others [176]. Ceramic membranes are steam sterilizable and offer a higher mechanical stability [134], thus they may be preferably used in aseptic fermentations, since some hollow fibers are only chemically sterilizable and not very suitable for reuse. Composite materials, in which glass fiber filters are used as support for the polymerization of acrylamide monomers, were developed for the hydrolysis of penicillin G in an electrically immobilized enzyme reactor. By careful adjustment of the isoelectric point of amphoteric membranes, the product of interest (6-aminopenicillanic acid) was retained in an adequate chamber, adjacent to the reaction chamber, while the main contaminant (phenyl acetic acid), was collected in a third chamber [120]. 

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