Performance Of Ceramic Membranes Research Articles

State-of-the-Art Ceramic Membranes for Oily Wastewater Treatment: Modification and Application.

Membrane filtration is considered to be one of the most promising methods for oily wastewater treatment. Because of their hydrophilic surface, ceramic membranes show less fouling compared with their polymeric counterparts. Membrane fouling, however, is an inevitable phenomenon in the filtration process, leading to higher energy consumption and a shorter lifetime of the membrane. It is therefore important to improve the fouling resistance of the ceramic membranes in oily wastewater treatment. In this review, we first focus on the various methods used for ceramic membrane modification, aiming for application in oily wastewater. Then, the performance of the modified ceramic membranes is discussed and compared. We found that, besides the traditional sol-gel and dip-coating methods, atomic layer deposition is promising for ceramic membrane modification in terms of the control of layer thickness, and pore size tuning. Enhanced surface hydrophilicity and surface charge are two of the most used strategies to improve the performance of ceramic membranes for oily wastewater treatment. Nano-sized metal oxides such as TiO2, ZrO2 and Fe2O3 and graphene oxide are considered to be the potential candidates for ceramic membrane modification for flux enhancement and fouling alleviation. The passive antifouling ceramic membranes, e.g., photocatalytic and electrified ceramic membranes, have shown some potential in fouling control, oil rejection and flux enhancement, but have their limitations.

Preparation and application of low-cost ceramic membranes for separation of oil-water emulsion

This work presents the impact of fabricating pressure on the performance of ceramic membranes during the dead-end microfiltration of an oil-water emulsion. The membranes used in this study were fabricated at a pressure of 40 kN and 100 kN using the dry compaction method. The membrane characterization was done using XRD and FTIR analysis. The membrane performance was evaluated by carrying dead-end microfiltration experiments using synthetic oil-water emulsion as a feed at a trans-membrane pressure of 30 psi. The experimental results confirmed that the membrane fabricated at higher fabricating pressure (100 kN) gives better performance in terms of maximum oil rejection of 95.7% with the maximum flux of 2.04x10−3 m3/m2.s.

Manufacture of Layered-type MF Ceramic Membrane for Advanced Wastewater Treatment and its Fouling Control using Modularized Mechanical Scraper

In this study, a novel layered-type microfiltration (MF) ceramic membrane for advanced wastewater treatment was fabricated; composed of the support, buffer layer, and active layer. The buffer and active layers allow for the easy formation of the active layer on the support and selective permeation of the ceramic membrane, respectively. The average pore sizes of the support, buffer layer, and active layer were 2,677, 773.3, and 33.1 nm, respectively. The diameters of the active layer pores were <0.1 μm. The ceramic membrane performance and mechanical scraping effects on the membrane permeability improvement were evaluated. Mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) were used for the feed of an enhanced ceramic membrane filtration system, by combining the fabricated membranes and devised scrapers. The average flux recovery by scraping was 54% of the clean water flux; maintained by scraping despite the high turbidity feed. The permeation concluded within 0.2 h during scrape-off. This was not recovered despite scraping because the internal membrane pores became blocked due to the material turbidity and could not be separated at the surface of the ceramic membrane.

Ceramic membrane technology for water and wastewater treatment: A critical review of performance, full-scale applications, membrane fouling and prospects

• Ceramic membrane (CM) market is growing with many full-scale applications. • CM is superior to polymeric membrane–high stability & flux, long life, low fouling. • Physicochemical processes (e.g., ozonation) are effective for fouling control. • Catalytic (nano) CMs can enhance antifouling, and pollutant removal capability. • Cost analysis of CMs, fouling control & cleaning should be evaluated at full-scale. Application of ceramic membrane technology in water and wastewater is rapidly growing. Inherent advantages of ceramic membrane including chemical/thermal stability, low fouling propensity and long lifespan make ceramic membrane technology attractive, and the ceramic membrane market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12%. Ceramic membranes could be integrated with advanced oxidation processes such as in-situ ozonation that cannot be applied in the case of polymeric membrane due to their potential degradation during long-term exposure. In addition, the hybrid-ceramic membrane processes such as ceramic membrane bioreactor are superior to polymeric counterparts due to higher flux, higher pollutant removal, lower fouling rate and higher cleaning efficiency. Although ceramic membrane has high capital cost, life-cycle costs of ceramic and polymeric plants are comparable. Notably, full-scale ceramic membrane water/wastewater treatment plants have been installed in many countries such as Japan, USA, Singapore and United Kingdom. Given the attractiveness of this technology, performance of ceramic membrane is critically reviewed with a focus on their applications in water and wastewater treatment under mild conditions. In addition, fouling mechanisms and control strategies are elucidated and are compared with polymeric membranes. Importantly, for the first time, the status of full-scale applications and market prospects of ceramic membranes are critically analysed to show their future potential. Lastly, future research directions such as development of cost-effective ceramic membranes, understanding the biofouling evolution and economic evaluation of physicochemical processes for fouling control are proposed.

Effect of iron oxide content and microstructural porosity on the performance of ceramic membranes as microbial fuel cell separators

Ceramic materials based on naturally occurring clays are a low cost and environmentally friendly alternative to commercial polymer-based membranes in bioelectrochemical systems. In this work, ceramic membranes containing different amounts of iron oxide (1.06, 2.76 and 5.75 vol.%) and sintered at different temperatures (1100, 1200 and 1300 °C) have been elaborated and tested as separators in urine-fed microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The results reveal that the presence of iron oxide in the ceramic membrane composition increases the structural porosity and reduces the pore size for the three temperatures investigated. On the other hand, it was also observed that the iron content mitigates the negative effect of the high sintering temperature on the power performance of the MFCs. In the case of the ceramic membranes sintered at 1300 °C, power output improved ca. 10-fold when the iron oxide content in the membrane increased from 1.06 up to 5.75 vol.% (30.9 and 286.6 µW, respectively). Amongst the different combinations of iron phase content and sintering temperatures, the maximum power output was obtained by MFCs working with separators containing 5.75 vol. % of iron oxide and sintered at 1100 °C (1.045 mW). Finally, the system was stable for 65 days, which supports the long-term functionality of the different materials assessed.

Experimental study of the flux Law of flat ceramic membranes under different pressures

Abstract The flux performance of ceramic membranes is the basis for their efficient use. To study ceramic membrane flux variation, different filtration operating conditions were tested and the functional relationship between the membrane's clean water flux and the operating pressure within a given range obtained. The membrane's critical pressure and flux were determined by using pressure increments, and the flux variation law under different pressures determined experimentally. Analysis of the flux law and the membrane parameters enabled establishment of the flux model of filtration process and a model of flux stabilization after the deposition layer formed. The applicability of the model was proved by comparing and verifying the experimental data.

Pilot Tests and Fouling Identification in the Ultrafiltration of Model Oily and Saline Wastewaters

Abstract This paper evaluates ceramic membrane performance and fouling mechanisms in the ultrafiltration of model oil-in-water solutions with addition of NaCl. First, the work estimated the effect of main process parameters, i.e. transmembrane pressure, cross-flow velocity and NaCl content in the feed on oil rejection and permeate flux using 23 experimental design. The ultrafiltration experiments were carried out using pilot installation with commercial tubular ceramic 300 kDa membrane. Ultrafiltration data obtained using experimental design technique was used to determine the regression coefficients of polynomial equations. These equations give information on non-conjugated as well as conjugated effects of two operating parameters and one feed parameter on ceramic membrane performance in ultrafiltration process of model oil-in-water-NaCl solutions. Moreover, these equations can help to determine optimal conditions for ultrafiltration process from the point of view of membrane permeability and selectivity. Next, ultrafiltration results were analyzed using resistance-in-series model. It was found that the process is membrane resistance limited. It was also stated that, resistance caused by reversible fouling is greater than irreversible fouling resistance. Finally, pore blocking models based on modified Hermia’s equation were used to determine membrane fouling mechanism responsible for permeate flux decline with ultrafiltration time. In investigated system ceramic membrane fouling was caused by complete and intermediate pore blocking mechanisms.

Assessment of the Total Volume Membrane Charge Density through Mathematical Modeling for Separation of Succinic Acid Aqueous Solutions on Ceramic Nanofiltration Membrane

Nanofiltration of aqueous solutions of succinic acid with the addition of sodium hydroxide or magnesium hydroxycarbonate has been investigated experimentally and modeled with the comprehensively described Donnan–Steric partitioning model. The experimental retentions of acid at the same pH varied between 16% and 78%, while the estimated total volume membrane charge densities were in the range of −35.73 and +875.69 mol/m3. This work presents a novel insight into the modeling of nanofiltration and investigates the relations between the estimated total volume membrane charge densities, ionic strength, and component concentration on the performance of ceramic membrane. In addition, this study takes into consideration other parameters such as pH regulation and viscosities of solutions.

The effect of thermal activation for natural zeolite on the performance of ceramic membrane as Pb2+ ion adsorption

Zeolites known as molecular filters have the potential to adsorb heavy metals in wastewater, but zeolites in nature have many impurities, so it was activated to remove impurities and increase the effectiveness of zeolite adsorption. This work was conducted to determine the performance of thermally activated ceramic membrane as a heavy metal filter for wastewater. The ceramics made with the wet-mixing method are activated zeolite powder mixed with polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution which is useful as an adhesive as well as a pore-making agent. The fabrication was done of each with a PEG fraction (w/w) of 8.33%; 10.93%; 13.23%; 15.27%; 17.1%; and 18.75%, respectively. The flow test was performed using Pb solution as wastewater with concentration 200 ppm, and it was obtained ceramic permeability between of 1×10−11 thus 6×10−11m2, while UV-Vis spectroscopy was done to obtain the filter performance (C/C0), that is 0.13; 0.20; 0.32; 0.36; 0.45; 0.54. In conclusion zeolite membrane thermally activated can be used as heavy metals filter.

Enhanced Effluent Quality of Microfiltration Ceramic Membrane by Pre-Electrocoagulation

To purge micro polluted surface water more effectively through microfiltration (MF) ceramic membrane, electrocoagulation (EC) was employed to improve the effluent quality of the ceramic membrane. Process variables such as current density, influent flux and filtering mode were investigated based on the single factor experiment analysis. The refined EC-MF operating parameters were a current density of 2.0 mA·cm−2, an influent flow rate of 4 L·min−1 and cross flow filtration without recycling. Meanwhile, comparison of MF ceramic membrane performance with chemical-coagulation (CC) and electrocoagulation pretreatment was conducted. The results stated that conventional chemical coagulation was superior to aluminum based electrocoagulation and the gap in removal efficiency broaden with the escalation of Al3+ concentration since pre-CC had a higher removal rate of aromatic organic compounds.

Application Performance of Ceramic Membrane on Purifying FCC Slurry Oil

Application Performance of Ceramic Membrane on Purifying FCC Slurry Oil

Effect of milling time on the performance of ceramic membrane from ball clay for the treatment of nickel plating wastewater

This research reports the development of a membrane from milled ball clay for the treatment of nickel from industrial wastewater. The clay was sieved to 50 μm and milled at different times (10, 20, and 30 h). The raw clay, milled clay, and sintered clay were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), thermogravimetric analysis/differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), and particle size distribution (PSD). The milled clays were mixed with a 25 wt% cassava starch, compacted, and fired to a temperature of 1200 °C to produce porous membranes. The fired membranes produced from the milled clay were characterized by multi-point BET and FESEM. In addition, firing characteristics were determined by bulk density, apparent porosity, shrinkage, and flexural strength. Porous membranes produced were subjected to filtration of nickel plating wastewater. The concentration of the nickel in the wastewater and the permeated water was determined using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). BET and the FESEM results show that the pores in the membranes were mesopores with slit shaped-pore and average pore size in the range 23.65–38.86 nm. The concentration of nickel in the permeate water is found to be in the range 0.73–2.39 mg/l. This low-cost membrane will have an application for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing nickel from electroplating industries.

The Utilization of Ceramic Membrane for Treating of Water from Sekanak River Palembang to Produce Clean Water

The aims of this research is to produce clean water from Sekanak River by using the ceramic membrane. Also, this study is to analyze the performance of ceramic membranes in terms of its ability to reduce the pollutants contained in water from Sekanak River. The ceramic membrane was tube-shaped, made from clay (87.5 %w), iron powder (2.5 %w) and activated carbon of oil palm empty bunch (10 %w). The operation condition of membrane separation was of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, 75 minutes, 90 minutes and the applied pressure was of 1.0 bar, 1.5 bar and 2.0 bar. The reduction pollutants (Fe, Mn, Zn, NH3-N, NO2-, PO4-3,H2S, BOD5, and TSS) concentration increased with increasing the pressure and the operating time of membrane separation. After treating by the ceramic membrane, the average rejection of Fe, Mn, Zn, NH3-N, NO2-, PO4-3, H2S, BOD5, and TSS are 81.22%, 95.00%, 99.00%, 85.19%, 78.85%, 73.95%, 97.78%, 87.55%, and 75.46% respectively. The pollutant concentrations in the effluent were met the Environmental Quality Standards (BML).

The Effect of Pressure and Time Operation of Gasing River Water Treasure on Pollutant Concentration by Using Ceramic Membrane Separation

Abstract The purpose of this study is to treat water from Gasing River, Banyuasin District, South Sumatera Province by using ceramic membrane to produce clean water. Also, this study is to analyze the performance of ceramic membranes in terms of its ability to reduce the pollutants contained in water of Gasing River. The ceramic membrane was tube-shaped, made from clay (87.5% w), iron powder (2.5% w) and activated carbon of oil palm empty bunch (10% w). The operation condition of membrane separation was of 15 minutes; 30 minutes; 45 minutes; 60 minutes; 75 minutes; 90 minutes and the applied pressure was of 1.0 bar, 1.5 bar and 2.0 bar. The reduction pollutants (Fe, Mn, Zn, NH 3 -N, NO 2 - and PO 4 -3 ) concentration increased with increasing the pressure and the operating time of membrane separation, and the pollutants concentration in effluent was met the Environmental Quality Standards.

Performance of ceramic membrane in vacuum membrane distillation and in vacuum membrane crystallization

Membrane crystallization (MCr) is emerging as an interesting candidate to extract additional freshwater and raw materials from high-concentrated solutions. Traditionally, MCr has been carried out by using polymeric membranes that have limited chemical and mechanical stability. These shortcomings can be overcome by using ceramic membranes. The current study describes the preparation and testing of two hydrophobic ceramic membranes synthesized trough sol-gel process, and combined phase-inversion and sintering method. The first membrane (CM-L) was synthesized by coating hydrophobic polymethylsilsesquioxane aerogels on alumina membrane supports via a sol-gel process. The membrane showed stable hydrophobic character in membrane distillation and crystallization tests but very low flux. To obtain high flux, a second type (CM-S) membrane was prepared by applying Fluoroalkylsilanes (FAS) (1H, 1H, 2H, 2H‑perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane) hydrophobic agent at the relatively thin and more porous as-sintered alumina hollow fibers. The suitability of both membranes for MCr process was analyzed by crystallizing NaCl and LiCl. By using 1 M NaCl and 13 M LiCl aqueous solutions, and under the same operative conditions, CM-S membrane exhibited average flux higher than CM-L membrane. The performance of both the membranes, in terms of hydrophobic character, remained stable throughout the performed tests.

Treatment of food waste recycling wastewater using anaerobic ceramic membrane bioreactor for biogas production in mainstream treatment process of domestic wastewater

A bench-scale anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) equipped with submerged flat-sheet ceramic membranes was operated at mesophilic conditions (30–35 °C) treating domestic wastewater (DWW) supplemented with food wasterecycling wastewater (FRW) to increase the organic loading rate (OLR) for better biogas production. Coupling ceramic membrane filtration with AnMBR treatment provides an alternative strategy for high organic wastewater treatment at short hydraulic retention times (HRTs) with the potential benefits of membrane fouling because they have a high hydrophilicity and more robust at extreme conditions. The anaerobic ceramic MBR (AnCMBR) treating mixture of actual FRW with DWW (with an influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 2,115 mg/L) was studied to evaluate the treatment performance in terms of organic matter removal and methane production. COD removal during actual FRW with DWW operation averaged 98.3 ± 1.0% corresponding to an average methane production of 0.21 ± 0.1 L CH4/g CODremoved. Biogas sparging, relaxation and permeate back-flushing were concurrently employed to manage membrane fouling. A flux greater than 9.2 L m−2 h−1 (LMH) was maintained at 13 h HRT for approximately 200 days without chemical cleaning at an OLR of 2.95 kg COD m−3 d−1. On day 100, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-gel beads were added into the AnCMBR to alleviate the membrane fouling, suggesting that their mechanical scouring effect contributed positively in reducing the fouling index (FI). Although these bio-carriers might accelerate the breaking up of bio-flocs, which released a higher amount of soluble microbial products (SMP), a 95.4% SMP rejection was achieved. Although the retention efficiency of dissolved organic carbons (DOC) was 91.4% across the ceramic membrane, a meaningful interpretation of organic carbon detection (OCD) fingerprints was conducted to better understand the ceramic membrane performance.

Performance of ceramic nanofiltration membrane for desalination of dye solutions containing NaCl and Na2SO4

Removing mixture salts from dye solutions using membrane technology still need to be improved for high dye rejection and low salt rejection. In this work, ceramic membrane with pore size of 1.5nm presented a satisfactory desalination of dye solutions containing NaCl and Na2SO4 compared with two commercial organic nanofiltration membrane elements (DK and DL). Effect of salt content, salt type, molar ratio of NaCl and Na2SO4, dye concentration and pH on performance of ceramic membrane for desalination of Eriochrome black T (EBT) were investigated. The results showed that dye rejection decreased by increasing salt content, dye concentration and solution pH. Compared with dye-NaCl solutions, a relative high flux and low rejection of dye were observed when treating dye-Na2SO4 solutions. For the mixture salt-dye solutions, the flux, which was higher than that for the single salt-dye solutions, first increased then decreased with decreasing CNaCl/CNa2SO4 due to the change of structure of cake layer. Supper-molecule aggregates of EBT formed by hydrogen-bond is mainly responsible for the high rejection of EBT (>99%) at acid conditions. The rejection of NaCl and Na2SO4 was below 20% and 40%, respectively. These promising results demonstrates that the new ceramic membrane has a potential application in dye purification.

Application of ceramic membrane for seawater desalination pretreatment

AbstractIn this study, a ceramic microfiltration membrane was examined as a pretreatment of reverse osmosis (RO) process for seawater desalination. The performance of ceramic membrane with and without coagulant were compared in terms of permeate qualities and transmembrane pressure (TMP). Various parameters were analyzed, such as turbidity, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), UV254, SDI15 (silt density index), and TMP. When ceramic membrane system was operated without coagulation at flux 2 m3/m2 d, SDI15 value and turbidity of permeate water was less than 3 and 0.1 NTU, respectively. However, SDI15 and turbidity were reduced to 0.9 and 0.076 NTU, respectively, when coagulant of 6 mg/L was applied. The comparison of TMP on different membrane flux was controlled flux 2 and 5, 10 m3/m2 d with and without coagulation. The increase of TMP was significantly mitigated from 90 to 13.8 kPa at flux 5 m3/m2 d, from 87.4 to 21.5 kPa at flux 10 m3/m2 d, respectively, by coagulation followed by filtration. Ceramic MF syste...

Efficient recovery of ultrafine catalysts from oil/water/solid three-phase system by ceramic microfiltration membrane

A submerged ceramic membrane filtration system was constructed for the filtration of oil/water/solid three-phase mixture, where hexane acted as the oil phase and beta zeolite as the solid phase. The effects of the phase composition and transmembrane pressure on the filtration performance of ceramic membrane were investigated. The liquid composition in the feed and transmembrane pressure greatly affected the filtration rate and the proportion of oil/water in the permeate. Only aqueous phase passed through the membrane at lower pressures, both water and oil phases could permeate through the membrane with a lower water yield at higher pressures, and the lower water content in the feed promoted the earlier discharge of oil. The hydrophilic nature of ceramic membrane should be responsible for the filtration behavior. A combined process applying low pressure for water permeation and high pressure for oil permeation was proposed for the filtration of oil/water/solid three-phase mixture, and an efficient separation of oil/water/solid three phases was achieved.

Oilfield Produced Water Treatment by Ceramic Membranes: Mass Transfer and Process Efficiency Analysis of Model Solutions

This work evaluated the performance of ceramic membranes in removing dispersed oil present in oilfield produced water, seeking to advance knowledge of the process, and identify the conditions for its application. The effect of the operating conditions and effluent characteristics were evaluated across a wide range, enabling establishment of operational limits for the permeation process. It was demonstrated that a flow regime corresponding to a Reynolds number (Re) greater than 6,000 does not imply significant improvements in membrane permeability. It was further found that the permeate flux exhibits a slight linear dependence with the salt concentration (CS).