Abstract

The development of tight ceramic ultrafiltration membranes for water purification facilitates is challenging because of high fabrication costs and low permeate flux. In this study, a low-energy rapid thermal process (RTP) was comprehensively investigated for fabricating of high-precision, permeable α-alumina tight ultrafiltration membranes. Compared to the conventional thermal process (CTP), RTP offers an ultra-fast heating rate and shorter holding time, effectively mitigating grain growth and pore aggregation. Moreover, the decomposition of organic matter is delayed during RTP, providing a lower interfacial energy that enables direct formation of α-alumina at a low temperature of 750 °C. During a secondary subsequent RTP, the residual phase is fully converted to α-alumina by the in-situ seeding effect. By utilizing RTP, we successfully prepared α-alumina ultrafiltration membranes within 30 min by calcination, with an average pore size of approximately 6 nm, a narrow pore distribution coefficient of 1.12, and high permeance of 219 L−1·m−2·h−1·bar−1.

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