Synthesis, characterization and pervaporation properties of microwave synthesized zeolite A membrane Original Research Article

Zeolite A membrane was synthesized on α-alumina tubular support using the hydrothermal microwave synthesis method. The effect of seeding on the membrane synthesis was investigated. The synthesized zeolite membranes were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) microanalysis, and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD and SEM analysis showed that seeding enables a better control on the membrane formation. A continuous layer of zeolite A with boundary phase consisted of the interface between adjacent crystals was detected for the zeolite A membrane synthesized with seeding. The TGA analysis showed that zeolite A membranes were thermally stable and can be used at high temperature. The separation performance of synthesized zeolite A membrane was studied for the recovery of alcohol from alcohol–water mixture using pervaporation process at different operating conditions. The separation performance for the membrane synthesized with seeding was observed to be much better than those synthesized without seeding under the same operating conditions.