Investigation of effects of microstructural and surface properties of ultrafiltration/ nanofiltration ceramic membranes on their performance

Abstract

The ceramic membranes with their superior chemical, thermal, mechanical and microbiological properties and long service lives are gaining importance in pressure driven filtration processes. The diverse requirements of different applications enforce preparation of tailor-made ceramic membranes with specific characteristics. This dissertation focused on the preparation and characterization and filtration performance of asymmetric multilayer ceramic membranes. Support is the layer responsible for mechanical stability while top layer is mainly responsible for separation and intermediate layer is balancing the microstructural difference between these two layers. The permeability of alumina support could be increased over 100 L / m2 h by 15% starch addition. The intermediate layer was prepared by coating fine alumina or zirconia powders and / or colloidal sols with thicknesses between 0.2-70 .. The top layer was formed from pure or mix of zirconia or titania polymeric sols with average particle sizes in the range of 3 . 50 nm with a thickness smaller than 1.. The physicochemical properties of these mixed oxides were modified by changing the composition and calcination temperature enabling preparation of top layers with varying Donnan exclusion capacities. The membranes prepared could reject sugar, PEG 1000 and PEG 4000 up to 10, 60 and 19%, respectively, that which can be increased via further optimization of parameters in coating / heat treatment processes.