Characteristics of a zirconia composite membrane fabricated by a laser firing method

By a method of laser firing, a high zirconia containing (70%) composite membrane on porous ceramic tubing was successfully fabricated. The laser sintered composite membrane was characterized by gas separation/permeation experiments. In the separation experiment of a CO₂---CH₄ gaseous mixture, it was found that the separation factor of CH₄ over CO₂ was 1.15. In the pure gases permeation experiment, it was found that Knudsen diffusion is considered to be predominant in the permeation mechanism for pure gases H₂, He, CH₄, N₂, O₂, and CO₂, and the permeation mechanism of H₂O at lower temperature depends mainly on surface diffusion and on Knudsen diffusion at higher temperature.