(220b) Thin Flat Sheet Molecular Sieve Membranes for Air Drying and Energy Recovery of Building Ventilation

Dehumidification and/or humidity control of air, gas in general is commonly needed in industrial processes and in buildings.  A great amount of energy is consumed world-wide with conventional approaches. In this presentation, a new, versatile membrane technology is introduced to reduce energy consumption and capital cost for these applications. The membrane is prepared by deposition of a water-selective molecular sieve (zeolite) membrane on a thin (50um), robust porous metal sheet support. Such a membrane provides a unique combination of performance attributes that could not be obtained with conventional membranes, such as mechanical strength, thermal and chemical stability, high thermal conductivity, and high water permeance. The membrane can be used to separate water vapor from a hot gas stream by pervaporation and result in more than 50% energy saving for air conditioning of buildings in hot humid climate. The membrane can also be used to conduct humidity and/or heat exchange for energy recovery of building ventilation. The exceptionally high water permeance (>1.0E-5 mol/m2/s/Pa) of this membrane dramatically reduces usage of membrane surface area and enables development of a compact, cost-competitive membrane device suitable for these applications involving large volume of gas flow.