Preparation and performance of carbon composite membranes with ordered mesopores

An ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) was synthesized by the soft templating method using resorcinolformaldehyde as carbon source, and Pluronic F127 and F123 as templates. The carbon composite membrane was prepared by coating the precursors under optimum conditions on the outer surface of a tubular carbon membrane produced from blended coals, followed by carbonization to remove the template and convert the precursors to carbon. The influence of synthesis conditions such as kinds and quantities of the templates and catalysts on the structure and performance of the OMC were investigated by TEM, SEM and XRD. Results indicated that an optimized OMC with a well-ordered pore structure and high permeation flux was synthesized under catalysis of HCl, F127/resorcinol molar ratio of 0.0081 and reaction temperature at 30℃. The largest pore size of carbon membranes decreased from 0.530μm for the tubular carbon membrane to 0.299μm for the composite membrane. The N₂ permeability of the composite membrane reached 1.18 · 10^-8m³ · m^-2 · s^-1 · Pa^-1, which was four times that of the conventional soft coal-based carbon membrane.