Low-Temperature Preparation of Silicon Carbide Ceramic Membrane for Oil-in-Water Separation

Silicon carbide ceramic membranes can be used in various water and wastewater treatments due to their high hydrophility, and superior chemical and thermal resistances. However, their applications are restricted due to some corresponding problems like high sintering temperature and then the high production cost. In this work, a low-temperature aid (LTA) bonded SiC ceramic symmetric membrane was sintered at 1000 ℃. The results show that LTA bonded SiC particles to form a skeleton of the symmetric membrane. The porosity of the membrane decreases from 42% to 35% and the average pore size decreases from 3.5 μm to 2.1 μm with the increase of LTA content from 10%(mass fraction) to 30%. Based on the results of the separation test on oil-in-water emulsion, the oil rejection and flow flux are 93.3% and 123 L/(m²·h) at the trans-membrane pressure of 0.2 bar, respectively. This study provides a low sintering temperature and energy saving strategy for the preparation of SiC ceramic membrane.