Towards the Preparation of Ordered Mesoporous Carbon/Carbon Composite Membranes for Gas Separation

Carbon/carbon composite membranes (CCMs) were made using the blend of polyimide with ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) as precursor at a pyrolysis temperature of 650 degrees C. The thermal stability of precursors, the structure evolution, and the morphology and gas separation performance of CCMs were investigated. The results have shown that the CCMs are one of the most attractive membrane materials for gas separation. The thermal stability of the precursor is improved by the addition of OMC. OMC can tightly embed in the membrane matrix due to the carbonaceous homology of matrix. As a result of the addition of OMC into carbon membranes, the gas permeability of O-2 increases ten times, together with the O-2/N-2 selectivity significantly boosting from 10.3 to 12.9.