(335m) Development of Inorganic Membranes in ChinaFpresent and Future

Development of Inorganic Membranes in ChinaFPresent and Future

Wanqin Jin and Nanping Xu

State Key Lab of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering,

 Nanjing University of Technology,  Nanjing 210009, China.

E-mail: wqjin@njut.edu.cn

Inorganic membranes are known for excellent physical and chemical properties, such as thermal stability and chemical durability, which endow them with significant advantages for use in separations that are difficult to achieve by conventional organic membranes, i.e. high-temperature separations and separations of aggressive media. Nowadays inorganic membranes have been widely applied in the fields of chemical, petrochemical, metallurgical, bioengineering, environment engineering, food and drug industry.

Inorganic membranes were first developed in the 2^nd World War as gas diffusion barriers for the enrichment of uranium. It is around 1980 that inorganic membranes were used for the separation in liquid media by many countries including the People’s Republic of China. Nowadays, with facing immense sustainability challenges in terms of energy, resources and environment, China has made a considerable progress in the inorganic membrane technology. In this talk, a short summary of the development and application of inorganic membranes in China will be presented. These inorganic membranes are applied in various membrane processes, including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, pervaporation, gas separation and membrane reactor. In particular, a number of representative developed membrane materials such as porous ceramic membranes, zeolite membranes, mixed ionic-electronic conducting membranes, metal membranes etc., will be presented here. Furthermore, some typical industrial applications of current membrane processes in China will be illustrated in this presentation, such as environmental protection processes, food and beverage industries, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as chemical and petrochemical fields. Finally, future trends of the inorganic membranes of China will be prospected.