Membrane preparation and catalyst incorporation

Dense ceramic membranes can be fabricated in three configurations disc/ flat-sheet membrane, tubular membrane and hollow fibre membrane. Their preparation processes are described respectively in details as follows. 

Disc/flat-sheet-shaped membranes are mostly applied in dense ceramic membrane reactors due to the ease of the fabrication process the ceramic material powder is pressed into discs in a stainless steel mould under an isostatic or hydraulic pressure, followed by sintering at a high temperature. Such disc-shaped membranes usually have a thickness of about 1 mm so as 

Tubular membranes with one dead-end can be prepared by cold isostatic pressing (CIP) with green machining method (Akin and Lin, 2002). Tlie ceramic powder is first pressed into cylindrical rods. A carbide bit is used to drill the rods into dead-end geometry. The dead-end tubes are then sintered and annealed at elevated temperatures into dense membranes. 

Hollow fibre membranes have a micro-tubular configuration with outer diameter of less than 2 mm. The above extrusion-sintering method can also be used to fabricate hollow fibre membranes. But the method mostly used to fabricate dense ceramic hollow fibre membranes is the phase 

7 Phase inversion-sintering process to fabricate ceramic hollow fibre membranes. 

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