Differences in binary gas permeation between inorganic and polymeric membranes

Membrane technology, which has such promising features as high efficiency, low-cost and easiness to scale-up, has gained more and more attention in R&D. Its rapid progress urgently needs new technologies of membrane characterization and evaluation for both gas and liquid applications. There are two popular types of membranes, inorganic and polymeric membranes, in current market. For the true separation process, multicomponent gas mixtures need to be studied through the membrane. Totally different behaviors of binary gas permeation between inorganic carbon molecular sieve (CMS) and polymeric polysulfone (PSF) membranes can be revealed by improved time lag technique. Those differences are dependent of their disparate transport mechanisms.