Highly permeable DDR membranes

In this study, DDR membranes with a layer thickness of approximately 700 nm were studied for separation feeds comprising mixtures of CO2 and CH4. The membranes displayed the highest CO2 over CH4 permselectivity and CO2 permeability reported in literature. This was ascribed to a defect-free and ultra-thin zeolite film as well as an open and highly permeable support. For equimolar mixtures, the highest CO2 over CH4 permselectivity of 727 was observed when the pressure at the feed side was 5 bar(a) and the permeate pressure was 1 bar(a) at 25 °C. At these conditions, the CO2 permeability was very high at 45 × 10−7 mol/(m2 s Pa). Separation experiments for 80/20 and 20/80 mixtures were also performed, and in these cases, CO2 over CH4 permselectivities of 1011 and 622 were observed, respectively. For all feeds, the membrane permselectivity decreased slightly at higher temperature and in all cases, higher permselectivity was observed when vacuum was applied at the permeate side. One-stage membrane processes for upgrading biogas to biomethane at three different operating pressures were designed based on the experimental data. In all cases, a quite low membrane area, methane slip and power need were observed.