Preparation of Zeolite X Membranes on Porous Ceramic Substrates with Zeolite Seeds

Zeolite X membranes were investigated by in-situ hydrothermal synthesis on porous ceramic tubes precoated with zeolite X seeds or precursor amorphous aluminosilicate, and porous a-Al2O3 ceramic tubes with a pore size of 50-200 nm were employed as supports. Zeolite X crystals were synthesized by the classic method and mixed into deionized water as a slurry with a concentration of 0.2-0.5wt%, having a range of crystal sizes from 0.2 to 2 um. Crystal seeds were pressed into the pores near the inner surface of the ceramic tubes, and crystallization took place at 95oC for 24-96 h. It was also investigated that Boehmite sol added with zeolite X seeds was precoated on ceramic supports to form a layer of r-Al2O3 by heating, and hydrothermal crystallization could then take place to prepare the zeolite membranes on the composite ceramic tubes. The crystal species were characterized by XRD, and the morphology of the supports subjected to crystallization was characterized by SEM. The composite zeolite membranes have zeolitic top-layers with a thickness of 10-25 um, and zeolite crystals can be intruded into pores of the supports as deeply as 100 um. The experimental results indicate that the precoating of zeolitic seeds on supports is beneficial to crystallization by shortening the synthesis time and improving the membrane strength. The resulting zeolite X membrane shows permselectivity to tri-n-butylamine((C4H9)3N) over per uro-tributyl-amine ((C4F9)3N), and a permeance ratio of 57 for ((C4H9)3N to (C4F9)3N could be reached at 350oC Permeances of BZ, EB and TIPB through the zeolite membrane were also measured and were found to slightly increase with temperature.