Preparation of Carbon Based Hydrophilic Inorganic Microfiltration Dynamic Membranes

Aiming at cross-flow microfiltration of oil-in-water emulsions, the hydrophilic dynamic membranes were prepared on the inner surface of porous tubular carbon support. Three kinds of hydrophilic inorganic particles, i.e., kaolin, zirconium oxide (ZrO2) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), were used respectively as coating materials to form the membranes. The variations of membrane permeation flux with time were examined during coating. The effects of coating material species, average pore size of the support, operation pressure, cross-flow velocity, coating solution temperature and cation concentration in the coating solution were investigated. The surface structures of prepared dynamic membranes were observed from their SEM images. Experimental results show that the kaolin and ZrO2 are appropriate coating materials for preparing dynamic membranes. The permeation flux increases with the increases of average support pore size, operation pressure and solution temperature. For the kaolin dynamic membrane, the permeate flux increases with the increase of cross-flow velocity; and for the ZrO2 dynamic membrane, the permeate flux increases firstly and then decreases with the increase of the cation concentration in the coating solution.