Pre-Treatment and Turbidity Reduction of Sea Waters Using New Composite Ceramic Microfiltration Membranes with Iron Oxide Additive

Abstract

In this research, an experimental study was carried out on the pre-treatment and turbidity removal of Persian Gulf water using cross flow microfiltration by new composite ceramic membranes. Three types of tubular microfiltration composite ceramic membranes that consisted of Mullite, Mullite/SiC, and Mullite/SiC/Fe2O3 with different compositions were fabricated at relatively low temperature (1250 °C) with extrusion and sintering for this purpose. Furthermore, changes in porosity, pore size, and mechanical strength were compared in Mullite membranes and composite membranes to find the most suitable membrane for turbidity removal from seawater. According to the results, the most suitable synthetic membrane was M/SiC/Fe10 membrane with 60:30:10 ratios of mullite, silicon carbide, and iron oxide with 64.6 ± 2% porosity, average pore size of 0.54 μm, 95.4% turbidity removal, pure water permeability of 3811 L/m2.h, and higher mechanical strength (22.4 MPa) compared to other fabricated membranes. Results of Hermia’s models for fouling modeling indicated that the dominant mechanism of blocking in all membranes was standard pore blocking with the best compliance with experimental data. Therefore, results demonstrated that the addition of Fe2O3 to silicon carbide ceramic microfiltration membranes, with a specific weight percentage, improves their mechanical properties and membrane performance for pre-treatment of seawaters.

Studying the Effect of Phosphogypsum Addition on Ceramic Membrane Properties

“…To address this issue, various modifications have been investigated, and among them, the addition of ferric oxide (Fe2O3) has shown promising results in enhancing mechanical strength, membrane formation, and surface morphology. Previous studies have reported that incorporating Fe2O3 from 0 to 10% leads to a 14% increase in mechanical strength [20]. Similarly, Li et al [21] have demonstrated that increasing Fe2O3 content from 8 to 12% resulted in a remarkable 27% improvement in mechanical strength, reaching a value of 1.92 MPa.…”

Eco-Friendly Superhydrophobic Modification of Low-Cost Multi-Layer Composite Mullite Base Tubular Ceramic Membrane for Water Desalination

“…The wet membranes were reweighed after eliminating any surplus water present on their surface in order to ascertain their weight. The porosity of each membrane was calculated using the following Equations ( 2)-( 4) [49,50].…”