Latest development of carbon hollow fiber membranes for gas separation

Abstract

Inorganic membrane is one type of synthetic membranes. It has been developed before 1945. At early stage, the application of inorganic membranes was mainly concentrated on military purpose and not commercially used by the industry. However, nowadays inorganic membranes especially carbon membrane has emerged as another alternative membrane in the separation technology. Generally, inorganic membranes can be divided into two different categories: porous inorganic membranes and dense inorganic membranes. Carbon molecular sieve membrane is one type of porous inorganic membranes. The concept of carbon membrane for gas separation has been found in early 1970. However, the boost of interest to develop carbon molecular sieve membrane only appeared after Koresh and Softer successful achieved apparently crack-free molecular sieving carbon hollow fiber membranes. Until today, researchers from all over the world have prepared carbon molecular sieve membranes by using various polymeric materials. Pyrolysis method is usually used to produce carbon membranes derived from organic polymers. Permeation properties of carbon membranes have been improved greatly in these 20 years due to much effort put in this field. It is found that the carbon membrane has a lot of unique characteristic and advantages compared with polymeric membranes. Due to better selectivity, thermal and chemical stability, more attention will be paid to carbon membranes in new millennium especially carbon hollow fiber membranes. This is because hollow fiber configuration has been recognized to be more suitable and practical to be used in the industry. Hence the purpose of this paper is to give an overview regarding the development of carbon hollow fiber membranes in last 30 years in order to encourage more researchers involve in the development of carbon hollow fiber membranes for gas separation.