As ZIF materials have their unique properties such as high surface area, tunable pore structure, thermal and chemical stability, they can be used in various applications including gas separation and catalysis. For synthesis of ZIF membranes, fixing sub-micron ZIF seed particles on the support is challenging and important. In this work, ZIF-8 seed layer was synthesized by conversion synthesis of ZnO layer on support in H-mIm solution, followed by the secondary growth synthesis of ZIF-8 membranes. The parameters of conversion seeding had been investigated to control the reaction rate combining the dissolution rate of ZnO and the crystallization rate of ZIF-8. This ZIF-8 membranes showed the better coverage of seeding layer and improved gas separation properties compared with the membranes prepared by traditional dip-coating seeding method.