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Ceramic membranes are an inorganic membrane that received great attention as it overcome the limitation of polymeric membrane. The silica ceramic membrane can be used in gas separation as it able to work at elevated temperature and in chemically aggressive environment. This work is conducted to study the influence of the molar ratio of water (R) on the fabrication of silica ceramic membrane by sol-gel dip-coating method. Commercial support was dipped into the solutions consist of the mixture of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), distilled water and ethanol with the addition of a small amount of acid as a catalyst. The molar ratio of TEOS toethanol was fixed at 1 to 3.8 (TEOS:ethanol, 1:3.8). However, the molar ratio of water are varied at 2, 3, 4 and 4.7. FESEM (Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope), XRD (X-ray Diffraction) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) are utilized to determine the structural and chemical properties of silica ceramics that are fabricated with different R. FESEM images implied that the silica has been deposited on the surface of silica membrane and penetrate into the pore walls. XRD analysis of the fabricated silica ceramic membranes illustrated the existence of silicate hydrate. The fabricated silica ceramic membrane with silica sol molar ratio 1:3:3.8 gave the lowest intensity of XRD peak. FTIR analysis, it was observed that the presence of Si-O-Si functional group is in the range 1060 to 1080 cm -1 .

Ceramic membranes became one of the most important ceramic products because of their numerous benefits to many applications especially in gas separation processes. The attractive features offered by this technology include high energy efficiency, simplicity design and construction of membrane modules and environmental compatibility. The aim of this project is to get the optimum calcination temperature thus will give the optimize pore size for separation gas without cracking or pinholes the membranes. Therefore, the silica ceramic membrane was fabricated via sol-gel dip-coating method and the effect of calcination temperature on the membrane pore size was investigated. The ceramic support was dipped in the mixture solution of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), distilled water, ethyl alcohol and nitric acid with the desired molar ratio followed up by the calcination process at 400 °C, 500 °C and 600 °C. For X-ray diffraction (XRD) results, the fabricated silica ceramic membrane shows the existence of silicate hydrate when calcined at 400 °C, 500 °C and 600 °C. The XRD analysis showed the highest peak intensity at 22.5° which proved the presence of silica. From the field emission electron microscopy (FESEM) images, the pore size of the ceramic support was around 0.5 to 0.6 μm. After the silica ceramic membranes were fabricated, the pore size no longer visible under the FESEM proves that the pore size of the membranes was reduced. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed adsorption spectra of the fabricated membranes with different calcination temperature. The broad band in the region around 1060 to 1090 cm-1 correspond to the O-Si-O bond of mesoporous silica altogether confirming the existence of silica. Based on the result analysis, the suitable calcination temperature at 500 °C with less crack and more consolidated surface membrane.