This book aims at illustrating several examples of different membrane compositions ranging from inorganic, polymeric, metallic, metal organic framework, and composite which have been successfully deployed to separate industrially relevant gas mixtures including hydrogen, nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, olefins/parafins among others. Each book chapter highlights some of the current and key fundamental and technological challenges for these membranes that must be overcome in order to envision its application at industrial level.

This unique compendium describes research progress on metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes for different relevant industrial gas separations. Specifically, the book focuses mainly on gas separations which are important in flue gas treatment, natural gas purification, hydrogen purification, and nuclear reprocessing. The advantages of using MOFs in mixed matrix membranes are discussed. Some of the pressing challenges in the field, and strategies to potentially overcome them are also distinctly outlined.This volume is a useful reference materials for professionals, academics, researchers and postgraduate students in chemical engineering and materials engineering.

The purpose of this work is to improve the method of fabricating tubular metal supported microporous inorganic membranes. Earlier work focused on the original development of inorganic membranes for the purification of hydrogen. These membranes are now being scaled up for demonstration in a coal gasification plant for the separation of hydrogen from coal-derived synthesis gas for a project funded by the Office of Fossil Energy's Gasification and Coal Fuels programs [1]. This project is part of FutureGen, an initiative to build the world's first integrated sequestration and hydrogen production research power plant. Although previous work in the Advanced Research Materials Program project led to development of a tubular metal supported microporous membrane which was approved by the Department of Energy for testing, the membranes generally have lower than desired selectivities for hydrogen over other gases common in synthesis gas including carbon dioxide. The work on this project over three years will lead to general improvements in fabrication techniques that will result in membranes having higher separation factors and higher fluxes. Scanning electron microscopy and profilometry data will be presented to show qualitatively and quantitatively the surface roughness of the support tubes. We will discuss how the roughness affects membrane quality and methods to improve the quality of the support tube surface.

This book describes the tremendous progress that has been made in the development of gas separation membranes based both on inorganic and polymeric materials. Materials discussed include polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs), metal organic frameworks (MOFs), carbon based materials, zeolites, as well as other materials, and mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) in which the above novel materials are incorporated. This broad survey of gas membranes covers material, theory, modeling, preparation, characterization (for example, by AFM, IR, XRD, ESR, Positron annihilation spectroscopy), tailoring of membranes, membrane module and system design, and applications. The book is concluded with some perspectives about the future direction of the field.