Fabrication of multilayer ceramic membranes

The development of multilayer mixed conducting oxide membranes on macroporous dead-end tubular composite glass/ceramic substrates is presented. Sol modification of glass/ceramic substrate enhances the performance of catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) with reduced thickness of ceramic layers. The shrinkage misfit between support and ceramic layers can be regulated by different processing steps including sol modification of substrate and preliminary annealing of ceramic powders. Nanopowders of compatible complex perovskites as membrane materials were obtained by mechanochemical synthesis. Porous and dense ceramic layers were supported onto the internal wall of substrate by slip casting of slurries comprised of the narrow fractions of agglomerated powders dispersed in organic media with addition of surfactants. For SrFeO3-based dense perovskite ceramics, both dynamics of oxygen loss at high temperatures and mechanical properties were found to be affected by the presence of SrSO4 surface inclusions formed due to sulfur admixture in starting reactants. Copyright © 2009 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.