Study on resistance to erosion of cordierite and alumina supports

Commercial porous ceramic membrane supports are generally fabricated with α-alumina as the raw material, but both high price and high sintering temperature limit their further applications. In our lab macro-porous cordierite supports have been prepared using cheap industrial cordierite as the starting material. In this work, the commercial alumina and home-made cordierite supports were primarily characterized in term of the acid/alkali corrosion resistance. The results indicated that the alumina supports had the better acid corrosion performance but poorer alkali resistance. On the contrary, the as-used cordierite supports exhibited better alkali corrosion resistance but poorer acidic corrosion resistance. The low cost cordierite supports are expected to be used in the filtration of alkaline solutions or dust-containing alkaline gases, and the commercial alumina supports can be applied in strong acidic environment.