• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.177-184
• /
• 2014

Silica membranes with high permeability were prepared using colloidal and polymeric silica sols on a porous stainless steel-tube support by a DRFF and SRFF method. Silica sols were derived with tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) by sol-gel method and analyzed with DLS, FE-SEM, and $N_2$ adsorption. The coating of the intermediate layer with colloidal silica sol on the stainless steel-tube support led to a denser surface morphology of the membrane along with a considerable reduction in the number of surface defect. As the polymeric silica sol enclosed the colloidal silica sol with spherical particles during the SRFF method, the separation-layer-coated silica membrane showed a denser surface than the intermediate layer. Moreover, the silica membranes showed high hydrogen gas permeability of $(6.63-9.21){\times}10^{-5}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}{\cdot}Pa^{-1}$ with low $H_2/N_2$ perm-selectivity (2.9-3.1) at room temperatures.