High Performance Self-supporting Zeolite Membranes for Carbon Capture

It is widely accepted that increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change. With anticipated increases in fossil fuel consumption around the world, it is projected that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 will continue to increase in the foreseeable future, unless significant progresses are made to reduce or capture CO2 emissions. Zeolite membranes with nanosized pores has attracted significant interests in carbon capture due to their superior selectivity/permeability, high material stability, high energy efficiency, and small system footprint. Developing zeolite membranes with low membrane cost, few macroscopic defects, and high modulus design flexibility will enable economic and effective CO2 separation and capture. In Phase I self-supporting zeolite membranes will be fabricated via a novel membrane fabrication process by using additive manufacturing technology. The zeolite raw material formulation and membrane fabrication process will be developed to produce low cost and robust membranes. The zeolite membranes fabricated will be evaluated to assess their structural robustness and separation performance for CO2 separation and capture applications. The commercialization of the proposed zeolite membrane additive manufacturing technology will provide an economic and effective CO2 capture technology to reduce CO2 emissions or separate CO2 in industry gas processing.