Electrospinning technology applied in zeolitic imidazolate framework membrane synthesis

For the first time, an electrospinning technique has been introduced into the synthesis of supported microporous membranes. This new approach is suitable for various substrates, especially tubes, with the possibility of large-area processing. We can precisely control the thickness of the seed layer and obtain a continuous and uniform seed coating on the support surface. The zeolite imidazolate framework-8 was selected as a candidate to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, by which, defect-free and well-intergrown ZIF-8 membranes have been successfully synthesized. Single gas permeance of H2, N2, CH4, CO2 and binary mixtures experiments for H2–CO2, H2–CH4, H2–N2 were carried out. The results indicated that the ZIF-8 membrane prepared through this new approach had better H2 selectivity and gas permeability.