Access to clean and safe drinking water is a human right, yet it remains an unmet need for a significant portion of the global population. Groundwater, which accounts for about 30% of the world's freshwater resources, plays a vital role in fulfilling domestic, agricultural, and industrial water demands. The quality of groundwater is increasingly under threat from both anthropogenic and geogenic contaminants. Among these, arsenic stands out as one of the most insidious and widespread pollutants, affecting over 140 million people in more than 70 countries. Ceramic membranes are increasingly employed in water treatment owing to their exceptional chemical stability, thermal resistance, and mechanical strength. The current study presents a ceramic membrane using ceramic sludge instead of clay, with the addition of ceramic dust to enhance the pore formation. The flexural strength of the ceramic membrane and the flux rate were studied as a response to simultaneously studying the percentage of replacement of ceramic sludge by ceramic dust in the range of 0–50%, the firing temperature in the range of 900 °C to 1100 °C, and the soaking time in the range of 0.5 h to 3 h using Response Surface Methodology. The findings indicated that the optimal conditions for strength of 19.15 N/mm², a flux of 325 L.m −2 .h −1 , are 25% replacement, a firing temperature of 1100 °C, and a soaking time of 1.7 h. Under these conditions, the membrane rejection before surface modification is 5.16% for an arsenic feed concentration of 10 ppm, which increases to 61% after surface modification with polyamide 6 and Fe 2 O 3 for the same feed concentration. This modification significantly improved arsenic rejection, achieving removal efficiencies of 84%, 81%, 73%, and 61% for feed concentrations of 1, 2, 5, and 10 ppm, respectively. This study explores a sustainable method for recycling the wastes collected from Egyptian ceramic factories, enhancing the use of ceramic membrane for arsenic removal, and performing suitable surface modification for arsenic removal.
El-Mekkawi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.