Synthesis and Characterization of Microfiltration Ceramic Membrane Based on Fly Ash and Clay Mixture Using Sintering Method

Abstract

Ceramic membranes made from low-cost materials have increasingly been developed. Fly ash is a waste from cement industries, while clay is a natural resource that can be easily found to be used as economical mixed materials in the production of ceramic membrane. The manufacture of microfiltration ceramic membrane from fly ash - clay mixture has been carried out using the sintering method for 4 hours at low sintering temperatures variations at 750 °C (M1), 800 °C (M2), 850 °C (M3) and 900 °C (M4), respectively. The results showed that the ceramic membrane that was sintered at a temperature of 900 °C (M4) had the optimum characteristics with a porosity of 40.82%, a density of 1.0026 gr/cm3. From scanning elctron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that the M4 membrane was classified as a microfiltration membrane with an average pore size of 0.64 μm. The energy diepersive x-ray (EDX) analysis showed that the composition of the M4 membrane was dominated by elements O, Si, and Al. Moreover, the x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the fraction patterns of the membranes (M1, M2, M3, M4) were dominated by the quartz phase (SiO2) and illite phase ((KH3O)Al2Si3AlO10(OH)2).