• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.263-275
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• 2019

In the present study, thickness of MOR zeolite membranes was controlled by changing seed size, seeding amount, and aging time of hydrothermal solution, and then effect of membrane thickness on pervaporative ethanol dehydration for 90 wt.% ethanol-water mixture was investigated. First, nanosize MOR zeolite seeds with a diameter of 20 to 30 nm was successfully prepared by planetary milling a laboratory synthesized MOR zeolites and the coating amount was controlled by seed concentration and infiltration volume of coating solution during vacuum-assisted seeding. As seeding amount decreased, membrane thickness was reduced up to around $4{\mu}m$. The MOR zeolite membrane having a thickness of $4{\mu}m$ showed a water/ethanol separation factor of 760 and water flux of $1.0kg/m^2h$. The excellent water flux was due to the reduced membrane thickness which was derived from the nanosize seed. Therefore, it could be concluded that membrane thickness control by using nanosize seed can be a crucial factor to improve pervaporative water flux of MOR zeolite membrane.