Influence of calcination temperature and perovskite concentration on the morphology, gas permeance and selectivity of perovskite-titania membranes

Defect-free titania membranes doped with different concentrations of SrCo_0.8Fe_0.2O₃ perovskite were successfully prepared using a sol-gel technique combined with a wet impregnation process. The titania membranes were immersed in a perovskite solution, dried, andcalcined to obtain perovskite affixed inside theporoustitaniamembranes.Thephase transformation of titania and perovskite was investigated by varying the calcination temperature from 300 to 500 °C. The effect of perovskite concentration on the titania membrane morphology is described in detail. The results showed that calcination at 400 °C was preferable for preparing a perovskite-titania membrane with fully crystallized anatase and perovskite phases. The performance of the perovskite-titania membranes with various perovskite concentrations in terms of the O₂ and N₂ permeances and O₂/N₂ selectivity was also studied. We determined that the perovskite concentration affected the gas permeation performance of the membrane and that the P3/titania membrane provided the highest gas permeance and selectivity.