There is increasing pressure for industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from combustion processes, resulting in an increased interest in the development of methods to sequester and recycle the carbon dioxide produced during combustion. For example, carbon dioxide acts as a carrier for hydrogen fuel by reacting with renewably generated hydrogen to produce methanol. However, the current sequestration and recycling strategies are extremely difficult to reproduce and are not feasible; the carbon dioxide-containing stream produced by the traditional combustion process is exposed to an atmosphere with a high concentration of nitrogen. Current methods available to separate nitrogen and carbon dioxide for environmental benefit are expensive at the high flow rates encountered in industry. This creates an urgent need to find alternative combustion approaches.

We are utilizing a hollow fiber membrane fabricated from a single ceramic material. The ceramic membrane is a mixed ionic/electronic conductor (e.g. SrSc0.05Co0.95O3-x [SSC0.05]), and if a chemical potential gradient exists across the membrane (c.f. palladium membranes for the selective permeation of hydrogen), the membrane can then provide an oxygen ion flux without the need for external circuitry.