Ceramic nanomembrane, new material for dehydration of natural gas

Iranian researchers produced and studied a type of ceramic nanomembrane to separate humidity from natural gas in gas refining processes.

The produced nanomembrane has high thermal and chemical resistance and increases the efficiency of dehydration of gas while decreasing the amount of energy consumption.

The main objective of the research was to synthesize zeolite membrane with size of the pores between water and methane molecules to carry out dehydration process of natural gas.

According to the executor of the plan, the usual methods for the dehydration of methane include sorption or adsorption processes. These methods have many limitations, including high energy consumption. However, zeolite membranes can be used as a replacement for the usual dehydration methods due to their high thermal and chemical resistance and molecular sieve properties.

In general, membrane separation processes have numerous applications in various industries, including petroleum, gas, petrochemcials, water purification, pharmaceutics and food stuff in addition to dehydration of natural gas.

Hydrophilicity, simplicity of the synthesis and the possibility to change the structure are the reasons for the selection of zeolite membranes from LTA family. Nanomembranes were synthesized in a compound manner on a base of porous ceramic made of alpha alumina through secondary growth method. The pore size of the nanomembrane was adjusted after the synthesis by using potassium chloride solution through ion exchange process in the membrane structure.

Results of the research have been published in Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, vol. 22, issue 1, 2015, pp. 132-137.