University of Minnesota

Kumar Varoon Agrawal

Michael Tsapatsis

Lorraine F Francis

A process for making a mechanically strong, high permeance, and relatively inexpensive support structure for zeolite membranes is described. In an example implementation, a process includes forming a silica powder from silica fibers, mixing the silica powder and a polymer solution to form a mixture, forming the mixture into a shaped mixture, and sintering the shaped mixture to form a silica support.

Silica support structure for a zeolite membrane

Oxide materials, thin films, coatings, and methods of preparing the same are disclosed herein. In certain embodiments the oxide material can have an MWW type framework or an MFI type framework. In one embodiment, the method includes: providing a suspension of an exfoliated layered oxide material in a solvent; and filtering the suspension through a porous support to provide a film of the oxide material, optionally directly on the porous support. Secondary grown films of the oxide material and methods of preparing the same are also provided. Thin zeolite films are attractive for a wide range of applications including molecular sieve membranes and catalytic membrane reactors, permeation barriers, low dielectric constant materials for microelectronics and sensor components for selective sensing.

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Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Kumar Varoon Agrawal