Patent ID: 8608828

Claim:
A process for producing a carbon membrane, the process comprising: producing a surface mesoporous ceramic oxide layer atop a substrate carrier layer by a sol-gel technique, thereby obtaining a porous substrate, coating the porous substrate with a solution of an organic polymer which can be converted to a carbon membrane by pyrolysis to form a polymer coating, drying the polymer coating on the porous substrate by removing solvent to form a dry polymer coating, and pyrolyzing the dry polymer coating on the porous substrate, thereby forming the carbon membrane at a temperature higher than a baking temperature of the porous substrate, wherein any one of the coating, drying or pyrolyzing or a sequence of the coating, drying and pyrolyzing is optionally conducted more than once, and the surface mesoporous ceramic oxide layer has a baking temperature below a pyrolysis temperature of the organic polymer.