A review on the latest development of carbon membranes for gas separation

Inorganic membranes have been developed before 1945. The earlier applicatio n of inorganic membranes was primarily concentrate on military purpose. Car bon membrane is one type of porous inorganic membrane. Although the concept of carbon membrane for gas separation has been found in the early 1970, th e interest to develop carbon membrane only increased, since Koresh and Soff er successfully prepared apparently crack-free molecular sieving hollow fib er carbon membranes. Nowadays, plenty of researchers have used different po lymeric materials; including polyimides, to prepare carbon membranes by usi ng pyrolysis. In general, carbon membranes can be divided into four major c onfigurations: flat sheet, membrane supported on tube, capillary, and hollo w fiber. Permeation properties of carbon membranes have been improved great ly in these 20 years. Carbon membranes offer advantages over polymeric memb ranes especially in terms of selectivity as well as thermal and chemical st ability. More attention will be paid to carbon membranes in this century. T his paper will review the development of carbon membranes in the last 30 ye ars and give a clear future direction in research for carbon membrane. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.