Ceramic Membranes for the Separation of Carbon Dioxide - A Review

The separation and sequestration of CO2 produced from the combustion of fossil fuels is the need of the day to encounter 'Greenhouse Effect' and 'Global Warming'. Again, it is quite important also for improving the calorific value of natural gas and for reutilization of flue gas. Membrane technology has the potential to play a crucial role in this regard. Compared to other traditional techniques for the separation and sequestering of CO2, membrane technology, partricularly ceramic membrane, is still in relatively developing stage. But it has tremendous potential to emerge as a successful technology to meet the requirement in future. This article reviews previous works and recent achievements by different researchers on various CO2 selective ceramic membranes with reference to other type of membranes, like polymeric, hybrid and mixed matrix type. It also discusses various gas transport mechanism in membranes, different features of ceramic membranes, parameters that affect the gas separation in ceramic membranes, new generation ceramic and other types of membranes, industrial applications of membrane based gas separation process and future direction in membrane research.