Zeolite layer synthesized on porous alumina substrate for water/methanol separation

Zeolite layer on porous alumina substrate was fabricated in two stages. In the first stage, zeolite powder was coated on the surface of porous alumina disk via electrophoretic deposition (EPD) as seed crystals. Subsequently, zeolite was synthesized on top of the seeded layer by hydrothermal method. The crystalline and the morphology of zeolite layer were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) respectively. The separation efficiency of the synthesized zeolite layer on porous alumina substrate was also investigated using pervaporation of water/methanol mixture. The flux and quantity of methanol removal were concerned. As the results, zeolite layer synthesized using 80 M ratio of H2O for 3 day at 175 °C showed good performance. It presented dense layer and high separation, which removed 46.52% methanol from the 80:20 (wt%) methanol/water mixture.