Superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surface-enhanced separation performance of porous inorganic membranes for biomass-to-biofuel conversion applications

Michael Z. Hu, Chaiwat Engtrakul, Brian L. Bischoff, Gyoung G. Jang, Timothy J. Theiss, Mark F. Davis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

A new class of porous membranes is introduced to provide unique separation mechanisms by surface interactions and capillary condensation. High-performance architectural surface selective (HiPAS) membranes were designed for high perm-selective flux and high-temperature tolerance for hot vapor processing and liquid processing. Due to surface-enhanced selectivity, larger-fluxes were achieved by utilizing larger pore sizes (~8 nm for vapor phase and micron-sized pores for liquid phase separations). This article describes a membrane-based separation concept for biomass conversion pathways and demonstrates the initial data for selective permeation of toluene–water and toluene–phenol–water relevant to biofuel processing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)528-543
Number of pages16
JournalSeparation Science and Technology (Philadelphia)
Volume52
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 11 2017

Keywords

  • Biofuel separations
  • inorganic membranes
  • porous membranes
  • superhydrophilic
  • superhydrophobic

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