An adsorption filtration mechanism using porous ceramic membranes was proposed for the removal of heavy metals from the effluent of the UTM Lake. The effectiveness of the removal depends on kaolinite microparticle which is used as an adsorption agent in ceramic membranes. In this work, Sayong ball clay (SBC) from Malaysia was used in the preparation of the ceramic membrane. Sayong ball clay membranes were fabricated by gel casting (GC) and spark plasma sintering (SPS) methods. The effect of kaolinite and pore size on copper and nickel removal was investigated. X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), mercury porosimetry, and adsorption analysis were used to relate with the adsorption performance. It is found that kaolinite with the 14:1 ratio of monomers in the GC-SBC membrane performed the highest heavy metal removal.

The use of starch as pore-forming agent is one of the frequently used methods to produce porous ceramics membrane with controlled microstructure (porosity and pore size) because corn starch are cheap, non- toxic and environmental friendly. A membrane with the mixture 0–35 wt% of corn starch and ball clay were prepared by compaction process and sintered at 1200°C. Thermal analysis has been done to identify the minimum sintering temperature for ball clay. The sintered membranes show the range value of shrinkage is 4.5–22.76 % and apparent porosity of 9.14–31.83 % depending on the starch content. The pore structures were analyzed by FESEM. The strength of sintered samples was tested by 3-point bending test. The flexural strength reduced from 21–7 MPa. These clay membrane are promising porous ceramic structure for water filtration applications due to their excellent combination physical and mechanical properties.

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