When Dense or Microporous Materials Control the Overall Process Performance

When Dense or Microporous Materials Control the Overall Process Performance 

For membrane operations in which dense or microporous materials control the overall process performance there is no doubt that process intensification will follow directly from improvement of material properties. With the development of new materials having properties controlled at the nanoscale level, operations of this kind seem promised a really bright future. 

An example is provided by mixed matrix membranes (MMM). Basically they are constituted of inorganic molecular nanoparticles (such as zeolites, carbon molecular sieves, etc.) imbedded in polymers. MMMs open up new perspectives in gas separation. A main application for sustainable development is the purification of 

Free volume changes are observed and it appears that covalent bonding enhances the permeability without compromising the selectivity a strong contrast to dispersing the entities in the polymer matrix as most often classically done. 

Another interesting example was provided by Teplyakov et al. [6] at the last EuroMembrane Congress in Taormina, in September 2006. The authors deal with processes using porous ceramics with catalytic coating in microchannel walls. This 

---