Zeolites for separation: Fundamental and application

Material based emerging separation techniques are attracting more and more attention as alternatives to the traditional ones such as distillation and extraction, aiming to reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Due to their structure characteristics, zeolites can act as versatile sieves and adsorbents for molecules and have been successfully applied in some very important separation processes. Herein, two major catalogues of zeolite separations, namely membrane separation and adsorptive separation, are discussed and their underlying mechanisms are focused . In the part of membrane separation, the synthesis strategies toward zeolite membranes are introduced and the uniformly-oriented zeolite membranes are emphasized. In the part of the adsorptive separation, the industrial and popular adsorptive separations with the corresponding zeolite adsorbents are summarized. Generally, membrane separation relies on the molecular diffusion behavior within zeolites while adsorptive separation relies on the guest- host interaction in principle. The key challenges and misconceptions in zeolite separations are highlighted throughout the article.(c) 2022 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Material-based emerging separation techniques, such as zeolite membrane separation and adsorptive separation, have gained attention as alternatives to traditional methods. Zeolites, with their structure characteristics, have been successfully utilized in important separation processes as versatile sieves and adsorbents. This article discusses the synthesis strategies for zeolite membranes and emphasizes uniformly-oriented membranes. It also summarizes industrial and popular adsorptive separations using zeolite adsorbents.