High H2 permeable SAPO‐34 hollow fiber membrane for high temperature propane dehydrogenation application

SAPO‐34 hollow fiber zeolite membranes are successfully synthesized on α‐Al2O3 hollow fiber ceramic substrates by secondary growth method, and used to separate H2 from a binary mixture (H2, C3H8) or ternary mixture (H2, C3H8, and C3H6) under a wide temperature range (25–600°C) with the aim of using them for propane dehydrogenation (PDH) reactions at high temperature. The results show excellent performance for H2/C3H8 and H2/ C3H8 & C3H6 separation, with high H2 permeance of 3.1 × 10−7 mol/m2/s/Pa and H2/C3H8 selectivity of 41 at 600°C. Additionally, the membrane shows stable performance for 140 hr of H2/C3H8 separation test at 600°C. The high performance of this membrane is mainly attributed to the thin (∼2 μm) zeolite layer and asymmetric‐wall of the hollow fiber support. So far, this membrane offers the highest hydrogen permeation and selectivity for H2/C3H8 separation at high temperature (600°C) compared to those reported in literature.