Nilson Romeu Marcilio

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil

Abstract Title:

Production of Membranes from Coal Waste for the Purification of Biogas Derived from Biomass

Biography:

He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering (1973), a Master's degree (1979), and a PhD from UCB Lyon I, France (1989). He is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He has supervised 42 Master's students, 23 PhD students, and 8 postdoctoral researchers. He has published 91 articles in indexed international journals and 219 full papers in national and international conference proceedings, and holds 3 patent filings. He has experience in Chemical Engineering, with an emphasis on waste processing (coal and biomass), chemical kinetics, and heterogeneous catalysis.

Research Interests:

Biogas is a sustainable alternative for energy generation, composed primarily of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Membranes featuring selective zeolite layers are employed to separate CO2 from biogas, owing to their well-defined channel structures and pore sizes. Furthermore, producing membranes from waste materials is essential. Thus, this study aims to develop inorganic membranes featuring a ceramic support made of alumina (A) and coal fly ash (CFA), with a selective zeolite 4A layer. Ceramic supports composed of 100% alumina (A100) and a mixture of 70% alumina and 30% CFA (A70CFA30) were fabricated via uniaxial pressing at 7 ton and sintered at 1450 °C for 3 hours. Subsequently, they were characterized in terms of mechanical strength (4 point bending), density, pore size distribution (BET), hydrophilicity (contact angle), and pure gas permeation in a dead-end module (N2 at 1 - 4 bar). Zeolite 4A was synthesized from kaolin, involving calcination temperatures of 750, 800, 850, and 900 °C for 90 and 120 minutes, followed by hydrothermal treatment; the resulting crystalline phases were characterized by XRD. The A100 ceramic supports exhibited lower thickness and pore size, as well as higher density, mechanical strength, and hydrophilicity, compared to the A70CFA30 supports. Zeolites calcined at 750 and 800 °C for 90 min formed the 4A zeolite phase, whereas the other conditions resulted in quartz formation. Future steps involve SEM and FTIR characterization, as well as the deposition of the zeolite film onto the ceramic supports, followed by pure gas permeation tests (N2, CH4, and CO2).