High H₂ permeable SAPO‐34 hollow fiber membrane for high temperature propane dehydrogenation application

Abstract

Abstract SAPO‐34 hollow fiber zeolite membranes are successfully synthesized on α‐Al 2 O 3 hollow fiber ceramic substrates by secondary growth method, and used to separate H 2 from a binary mixture (H 2 , C 3 H 8 ) or ternary mixture (H 2 , C 3 H 8 , and C 3 H 6 ) under a wide temperature range (25–600°C) with the aim of using them for propane dehydrogenation (PDH) reactions at high temperature. The results show excellent performance for H 2 /C 3 H 8 and H 2 / C 3 H 8 & C 3 H 6 separation, with high H 2 permeance of 3.1 × 10 −7 mol/m 2 /s/Pa and H 2 /C 3 H 8 selectivity of 41 at 600°C. Additionally, the membrane shows stable performance for 140 hr of H 2 /C 3 H 8 separation test at 600°C. The high performance of this membrane is mainly attributed to the thin (∼2 μm) zeolite layer and asymmetric‐wall of the hollow fiber support. So far, this membrane offers the highest hydrogen permeation and selectivity for H 2 /C 3 H 8 separation at high temperature (600°C) compared to those reported in literature.