Novel high throughput equipment for membrane-based gas separations

The design and fabrication of a high throughput (HT) gas permeation system will be described. In order to test large sets of membranes, a HT-gas separation module was developed, allowing gas permeation and selectivity testing of 16 membranes simultaneously at different feed pressure and temperature. A variable temperature controller and adjustable upstream pressure controller permit measurements of low-permeability membranes and evaluation of temperature related phenomena. The potential of the developed equipment and the HT-screening concept in general was validated by demonstrating the reproducibility of experimental flux and selectivity data for a lab-made dense Matrimid and a commercial asymmetric membrane at all 16 positions. Permeate flux was measured with increased permeate pressure as function of time in a constant volume auxiliary cylinder. An on-line compact gas chromatograph was used for fast gas selectivity measurements. The reproducibility of the data was highly encouraging, proving that this HT approach can be a useful tool to rapidly screen a large array of operational parameters in membrane processes and of synthesis parameters in the development of new high-performing membranes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.