Study of the effect of morphology of nanoporous carbon membranes on permselectivity

The present work is aimed at developing uniform nanoporous carbon membranes on porous stainless steel supports. Thin layers of polyfurfuryl alcohol are applied on the stainless steel supports using spin coating method. Nanoporous carbon is obtained by pyrolyzing polyfurfuryl alcohol films under inert atmosphere. Uniform nanoporous carbon membranes were obtained by repeated spin coating and pyrolysis of polyfurfuryl alcohol on the stainless steel supports. The morphology of the membranes was examined using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It was shown that there is direct correlation between the morphology and the selectivity of the membranes. SEM and AFM show the presence of globular domains during the formation of carbon membranes. The selectivity increased with the decrease in the size of the globules. It was also shown that the annealing of the membrane affected both the morphology and the selectivity of the membrane.