Thermal method of gas separation with micro-pores

Abstract

A method of gas separation that exploits thermal transpiration across micro-pores is proposed. The structure of the separation element is comprised simply of a porous membrane and one channel along each of the two surfaces of the membrane. A temperature and pressure difference is applied across the membrane. This paper reports the first experiments that show binary mixtures of noble gases can be separated by the proposed method. Up to 15% mole percentage variation is observed using 30×30 mm2 sized mixed cellulose ester porous membrane with 45K temperature difference and 2kPa pressure difference. The experimental results match well with numerical results reported previously. Using numerical simulations, it is also shown for the first time that a concentration variation can be induced using the same structure while providing only a temperature difference.