Nanoporous silica membranes with high hydrothermal stability

Despite the use of sol-gel derived nanoporous silica membranes in substitution of traditional separation processes is expected leading to vast energy savings, their intrinsic poor steam-stability hampers their application at an industrial level. Transition metal ions can be used as dopant to improve the stability of nanoporous silica structure. This work is a quantitative study on the impact of type and concentration of transition metal ions on the microporous structure and stability of amorphous silica-based membranes, which provides information on how to design chemical compositions and synthetic paths for the fabrication of silica-based membranes with a well accessible and highly stabile nanoporous structure