Preparation of asymmetric Ni/ceramic composite membrane by electroless plating

Abstract Although a lot of work has been done on electroless nickel coating, work on preparing asymmetric nickel membranes on porous ceramic supports is rarely reported. In this work, microfiltration nickel membranes are prepared on porous alumina supports with electroless plating. A new approach technique, sol–gel process is used to activate the alumina supports. The coated membranes were investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy and gas permeation test. Membrane thickness and amount of nickel increase with plating time. Membrane pore size decreases greatly as electroless coating is processed for 15 min. After 15-min coating the pore size decreases slightly. For a 90-min electroless plated membrane, the thickness reaches 4.5 μm and the mean pore radius is 0.13 μm with a narrow distribution.