Development and Characterization of Low-cost Ceramic Membrane

Because of their better mechanical, chemical, and thermal properties, ceramic membranes are becoming more and more popular. They also have advantages over polymeric membranes. Many researchers have attempted to produce ceramic membranes by modifying their properties through various methods of production and raw materials. At present, a number of obstacles restrict ceramic membranes from being used widely, such as the expensive cost of raw materials and the high sintering temperature during synthesis. To overcome these limitations, low-cost raw materials like cenosphere and red mud were used for making ceramic membranes. Circular disk-type membranes were produced without the need of polymeric additives using a simple pressing technique. Throughout the synthesis process, the cenosphere and red mud compositions were changed to produce the composite membranes. The temperature range at which the membranes were sintered was 700 - 900 °C. The purpose of this research was to analyse the synthesized membrane through a variety of characterization techniques, such as thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) etc. Also, each synthesized membrane's porosity has been examined and it was found that when the sintering temperature increased, the porosity decreased for a given composition. The cost of the produced membrane was found to be ₹1898.80/m2.