Preparation of highly mesoporous carbon membranes via a sol–gel process using resorcinol and formaldehyde

This paper reports the preparation of highly mesoporous carbon membranes, which are obtained by the pyrolysis of sol–gel derived mesoporous polymer membranes using resorcinol and formaldehyde (RF). Two series of RF carbon membranes were prepared by changing the resorcinol to catalyst molar ratio. The nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurement shows that the RF carbon membranes possess a well-developed mesoporous structure with controlled pore diameters of 5.48 nm and 13.9 nm. The helium and nitrogen permeances of both RF carbon membranes were independent of the feed pressure, indicating that there was no contribution of viscous flow and the membranes are initially crack-free. The gas permeation result showed that the dominant mechanism of gas transport through both the RF carbon membranes is Knudsen diffusion. With regard to the permeation of condensable gases such as CH4 and CO2, it was observed that the surface flow also contributes to the total permeation.