Antifouling grafting of ceramic membranes validated in a variety of challenging wastewaters

Silicon carbide catalytic ceramic membranes with nano-wire structure for enhanced anti-fouling performance

Membrane fouling is a critical challenge for current ceramic membranes, which suffer from low flux and insufficient removal. Development of self-cleaning catalytic ceramic membranes is promising to address this challenge. Herein, we design heterogeneous silicon carbide ceramic membranes featuring a novel structure of g-C₃N₄-decorated β-SiC nano-wire catalytic functional layer, which enables enhanced anti-fouling self-cleaning performance. At chemical harsh (alkaline or especially acidic) conditions, the nano-wire membrane exhibits catalysis-enhanced removal performance for organic contaminants. Unlike conventional particle-packing membrane structure, such a nano-wire network membrane structure has not only high porosity (56.1%), but exceptional water permeance (110 L·m^-2·h^-1·bar^-1) and removal (100%) of organic substance under simulated sunlight, outperforming state-of-the-art organic membranes and ceramic membranes. Superoxide radical (∙O₂^-) was experimentally confirmed to be major reactive species responsible for self-cleaning function. We also propose a catalytic mechanism model with radical formation pathway, enabled by the as-formed g-C₃N₄@β-SiC heterojunction structure with reduced electron-hole recombination. This work would provide new insights into not only rational design of next-generation ceramic membranes with self-cleaning function but also more applications of efficient treatment of refractory wastewaters containing degradable organic substances by using such membranes.

Cost and efficiency perspectives of ceramic membranes for water treatment

More robust ceramic membranes with tailorable structures and functions are increasingly employed for water treatment, particularly in some harsh applications for their ultra-long service lifespan due to their high mechanical, structural, chemical and thermal stability and anti-fouling properties. Decreasing cost and enhancing efficiency are two key but quite challenging application-oriented issues for broader and larger-scale engineering application of current ceramic membranes, and are required to make ceramic membranes a highly efficient and economic water treatment technique. In this review, we critically discuss these two significant concerns of both cost and efficiency for water treatment ceramic membranes, focusing on an overview of various advanced strategies and mechanism insights. A brief up-to-date discussion is first introduced about recent developments of ceramic membranes covering the major advances of novel membranes and applications. Then some promising strategies for decreasing the cost of ceramic membranes are discussed, including membrane material cost and processing cost. To fully address the issue of moderate efficiency with single separation function, valuable and considerable insights are provided into recent major progress and mechanism understandings in application with other unit processes, such as advanced oxidation and electrochemistry techniques, to significantly enhance treatment efficiency. Subsequently, a review of recent ceramic membrane applications emphasizing harsh operating environments is presented, such as oil-water separation, saline water, refractory organic and emerging contaminant wastewater treatment. Finally, engineering application, conclusions, and future perspectives of ceramic membrane for water treatment applications are critically discussed offering new insight based on understanding the issues of cost and efficiency.

3D spray-coated gradient profile ceramic membranes enables improved filtration performance in aerobic submerged membrane bioreactor

Rational design of cross-sectional microstructure in ceramic membranes has shown to improve membrane filtration efficacy without affecting rejection performance. In this work, we adopted 3D spray-coating technique to generate multi-layered membrane layers on macro-porous flat-sheet ceramic supports. The thickness of each layer was controlled by spray-coating cycles, and a gradient membrane layer was rationalized by successively coating three ceramic slurries containing alumina powders of gradually refined particle sizes, followed by co-sintering. Gradient membrane layers on both sides of the various sized flat-sheet ceramic supports were fabricated. Compared to the non-gradient counterpart, the gradient membranes showed both higher pure water flux (at the same TMP) and lower membrane resistance, which clearly evidenced the benefits of gradient profile in the membrane layer. Further, their performance in aerobic membrane bioreactors (AeMBR) was comparably studied for the first time. The treatment performance was not significantly affected by the types of membranes used, while the gradient membrane showed better filtration performance (i.e., a slower rise in TMP). Although the fouling mechanisms were revealed to be similar, the fouling layer in the gradient membrane was composed of a higher percentage of smaller foulants compared to that of the non-gradient counterpart. The observed differences were closely correlated to the larger internal pore structure in the gradient membrane. The present work provides a feasible 3D spray-coating technique for the fabrication of gradient flat-sheet ceramic membranes, and clarifies the benefits in AeMBR for domestic wastewater treatment.

Statistical Simulation, a Tool for the Process Optimization of Oily Wastewater by Crossflow Ultrafiltration

This work aims to determine the optimized ultrafiltration conditions for industrial wastewater treatment loaded with oil and heavy metals generated from an electroplating industry for water reuse in the industrial process. A ceramic multitubular membrane was used for the almost total retention of oil and turbidity, and the high removal of heavy metals such as Pb, Zn, and Cu (>95%) was also applied. The interactive effects of the initial oil concentration (19−117 g/L), feed temperature (20−60 °C), and applied transmembrane pressure (2−5 bar) on the chemical oxygen demand removal (RCOD) and permeate flux (Jw) were investigated. A Box−Behnken experimental design (BBD) for response surface methodology (RSM) was used for the statistical analysis, modelling, and optimization of operating conditions. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that the COD removal and permeate flux were significant since they showed good correlation coefficients of 0.985 and 0.901, respectively. Mathematical modelling revealed that the best conditions were an initial oil concentration of 117 g/L and a feed temperature of 60 °C, under a transmembrane pressure of 3.5 bar. In addition, the effect of the concentration under the optimized conditions was studied. It was found that the maximum volume concentrating factor (VCF) value was equal to five and that the pollutant retention was independent of the VCF. The fouling mechanism was estimated by applying Hermia’s model. The results indicated that the membrane fouling given by the decline in the permeate flux over time could be described by the cake filtration model. Finally, the efficiency of the membrane regeneration was proved by determining the water permeability after the chemical cleaning process.

Modeling the antifouling properties of atomic layer deposition surface-modified ceramic nanofiltration membranes

This work investigates the enhancement of antifouling properties of ceramic nanofiltration membranes by surface modification via atomic layer deposition (ALD) of TiO₂. Feed solutions containing bovine serum albumin (BSA), humic acid (HA) and sodium alginate (SA) were used as model foulants. The classic fouling mechanism models and the modified fouling indices (MFI) were deduced from the flux decline profiles. Surface roughness values of the ALD coated and uncoated membranes were 63 and 71 nm, respectively, while the contact angles were 34.2 and 59.5°, respectively. Thus, coating increased the water affinity of the membrane surfaces and consequently improved the anti-fouling properties. The MFI values and the classic fouling mechanism correlation coefficients for cake filtration for the ALD coated and the uncoated membrane upon SA fouling were 42,963 (R² = 0.82) and 143,365 sL^-2 (R² = 0.98), respectively, whereas the correlation coefficients for the combined foulants (SA + BSA + HA) were 267,185 (R² = 0.99) and 9569 sL^-2 (R² = 0.37), respectively. The study showed that ALD can effectively enhance the antifouling properties of ceramic membranes.

Treatment of oily wastewaters by highly porous whisker-constructed ceramic membranes: Separation performance and fouling models

Efficient treatment of challenging oily emulsion wastewater can alleviate water pollution to provide more chances for water reuse and resource recovery. Despite their promising application potential, conventional porous ceramic membranes have challenging bottleneck issues such as high cost and insufficient permeance. This study presents a new strategy for highly efficient treatment of not only synthetic but real oily emulsions via unexpensive whisker-constructed ceramic membranes, exhibiting exceptional permeance and less energy input. Compared with common ceramic membranes, such lower-cost mullite membranes with a novel whisker-constructed structure show higher porosity and water permeance, and better surface oleophobicity in water. Treatment performance such as permeate flux and oil rejection was explored for the oily emulsions with different properties under key operating parameters. Furthermore, classical Hermia models were used to reveal membrane fouling mechanism to well understand the microscopic interactions between emulsion droplets and membrane interface. Even for real acidic oily wastewater, such membranes also exhibit high permeance and less energy consumption, outperforming most state-of-the-art ceramic membranes. This work provides a new structure concept of highly permeably whisker-constructed porous ceramic membranes that can efficiently enable more water separation applications.

Recent Mitigation Strategies on Membrane Fouling for Oily Wastewater Treatment

The discharge of massive amounts of oily wastewater has become one of the major concerns among the scientific community. Membrane filtration has been one of the most used methods of treating oily wastewater due to its stability, convenience handling, and durability. However, the continuous occurrence of membrane fouling aggravates the membrane's performance efficiency. Membrane fouling can be defined as the accumulation of various materials in the pores or surface of the membrane that affect the permeate's quantity and quality. Many aspects of fouling have been reviewed, but recent methods for fouling reduction in oily wastewater have not been explored and discussed sufficiently. This review highlights the mitigation strategies to reduce membrane fouling from oily wastewater. We first review the membrane technology principle for oily wastewater treatment, followed by a discussion on different fouling mechanisms of inorganic fouling, organic fouling, biological fouling, and colloidal fouling for better understanding and prevention of membrane fouling. Recent mitigation strategies to reduce fouling caused by oily wastewater treatment are also discussed.

The Effect of the Oleophobicity Deterioration of a Membrane Surface on Its Rejection Capacity: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Study

In this work, the effects of the deteriorating affinity-related properties of membranes due to leaching and erosion on their rejection capacity were studied via computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The function of affinity-enhancing agents is to modify the wettability state of the surface of a membrane for dispersed droplets. The wettability conditions can be identified by the contact angle a droplet makes with the surface of the membrane upon pinning. For the filtration of fluid emulsions, it is generally required that the surface of the membrane is nonwetting for the dispersed droplets such that the interfaces that are formed at the pore openings provide the membrane with a criterion for the rejection of dispersals. Since materials that make up the membrane do not necessarily possess the required affinity, it is customary to change it by adding affinity-enhancing agents to the base material forming the membrane. The bonding and stability of these materials can be compromised during the lifespan of a membrane due to leaching and erosion (in crossflow filtration), leading to a deterioration of the rejection capacity of the membrane. In order to investigate how a decrease in the contact angle can lead to the permeation of droplets that would otherwise get rejected, a CFD study was conducted. In the CFD study, a droplet was released in a crossflow field that involved a pore opening and the contact angle was considered to decrease with time as a consequence of the leaching of affinity-enhancing agents. The CFD analysis revealed that the decrease in the contact angle resulted in the droplet spreading over the surface more. Furthermore, the interface that was formed at the entrance of the pore opening flattened as the contact angle decreased, leading the interface to advance more inside the pore. The droplet continued to pass over the pore opening until the contact angle reached a certain value, at which point, the droplet became pinned at the pore opening.

Coalescence of an Oil Droplet with a Permeating One over a Membrane Surface: Conditions of Permeation, Recoil, and Pinning

When a droplet lands over a nonwetting surface it forms a convex interface that makes a contact angle larger than 90°. If the droplet lands over a pore opening, an interface is also formed at the pore opening that can prevent the droplet from permeating. The conditions for permeation and pinning are very much related to a threshold critical pressure that above which the droplet will permeate. This property defines a selectivity criterion for microfiltration processes of oily water systems using membrane technology. Such a feature of the membrane gets compromised, however, due to the permeation of droplets that are relatively smaller in size or whose critical entry pressure is smaller than the applied transmembrane pressure (TMP). In this work, we investigate what happens to a droplet when it coalesces with a droplet that undergoes permeation. Two scenarios are considered: namely, (1) a droplet coalesces with a permeating one whose interface inside the pore has not broken through the pore exit and (2) a droplet coalesces with a permeating one whose interface in the pore has broken through. We show that a larger droplet (that will essentially not permeate if pinned over a membrane opening) will now permeate when the pore is filled with oil from a preceding one or recoils when the interface inside the pore of a preceding droplet has not broken through the exit of the pore. This has interesting implications for the rejection capacity of the membrane, which decreases due to the permeation of droplets that would, otherwise, not permeate. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) study has been conducted to confirm the conclusions obtained from the theoretical study and to reproduce the fates of the combined droplet after coalescence at the surface of the membrane. Furthermore, a simplified formula for estimating the critical entry pressure is developed.

Protocol for Preparing Synthetic Solutions Mimicking Produced Water from Oil and Gas Operations

Produced water (PW) is the water associated with hydrocarbons during the extraction of oil and gas (O&G) from either conventional or unconventional resources. Existing efforts to enhance PW management systems include the development of novel membrane materials for oil-water separation. In attempting to evaluate these emerging physical separation technologies, researchers develop various formulations of test solutions aiming to represent actual PW. However, there is no clear scientific guideline published in the literature about how such a recipe should be prepared. This article develops a protocol for preparing synthetic solutions representing the characteristics and behavior of actual PW and enabling the performance comparisons of different oil-water separation membranes at the bench scale level. In this study, two different brine recipes were prepared based on salts present in actual PW, crude oil was used as the hydrocarbon source, and a surfactant was added to disperse the oil into the aqueous phase. The recipe is accessible to the wider scientific community and was proven to be reproduceable, homogenous, stable, and comparable to actual PW field samples through analytical monitoring measurements and bench scale evaluations.

Effective treatment of the wastewater from ceramic industry using ceramic membranes

Emissions of organic compounds, heavy metals and chemicals used in the ceramic industry cause significant organic and inorganic pollution of water. The effluent must be treated before it is discharged into a water body. International and EU laws control the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the wastewater. Conventional technologies, such as sedimentation, flocculation and biological treatment, have lots of drawbacks, whereas membrane technologies give many benefits, as they are chemical-free and allow a reduction of the treatment steps. One-step wastewater nanofiltration with ceramic membranes of 450 Da cut-off is able to reduce the COD of ceramic wastewater to a sufficient level. However, the working time without cleaning is limited and the rejection of membranes can be significantly reduced due to fouling. Multistage filtration can be the solution. Filtration experiments with various combinations (MF, UF and NF) of ceramic membranes were performed at a laboratory scale with single-channel membranes and at pilot scale with 7-, 19- and 151-channel membranes in order to permanently reach the limit value of a COD below 80 mg/L and to increase the operating time. Four types of membranes were sequentially tested in the cross-flow mode: MF (200 nm pore size), UF (2,000 Da), NF (450 Da) and NF (200 Da). 5-day Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) tests were performed in order to examine the wastewater biodegradability. The test results with single-channel membranes showed that in terms of the highest COD rejection and the highest permeability, the best combination was that of MF and UF membranes. Here, UF membranes were sufficient to reach the limit values. As for the multi-channel membranes, the combination of MF and NF (450 Da) was the best and the final COD concentration ranged from 11 to 48 mg/L. 5-day BOD bottle tests showed a COD/BOD ratio of 3.8, which opened up possibilities for combined treatment.

Ceramic nanocomposite membranes and membrane fouling: A review

Membrane technologies have broad applications in the removal of contaminants from drinking water and wastewater. In recent decades, ceramic membrane has made rapid progress in industrial/municipal wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment owing to their advantageous properties over conventional polymeric membrane. The beneficial characteristics of ceramic membranes include fouling resistance, high permeability, good recoverability, chemical stability, and long life time, which have found applications with the recent innovations in both fabrication methods and nanotechnology. Therefore, ceramic membranes hold great promise for potential applications in water treatment. This paper mainly reviews the progress in the research and development of ceramic membranes, with key focus on porous ceramic membranes and nanomaterial-functionalized ceramic membranes for nanofiltration or catalysis. The current state of the available ceramic membranes in industry and academia, and their potential advantages, limitations and applications are reviewed. The last section of the review focuses on ceramic membrane fouling and the efforts towards ceramic membrane fouling mitigation. The advances in ceramic membrane technologies have rarely been widely reviewed before, therefore, this review could be served as a guide for the new entrants to the field, as well to the established researchers.

Reverse osmosis membrane fabrication and modification technologies and future trends: A review

Reverse osmosis (RO) is the most widely used technology in water treatment and desalination technologies for potable water production. Since its invention, RO has undergone significant developments in terms of material science, process, system optimization, methods of membrane synthesis, and modifications. Among various materials used for the synthesis of an RO membrane, the polyamide thin-film composite (PA-TFC) is by far the most common, owing to its excellent water permeability high salt rejection, and stability. However, a tradeoff between membrane permeability and salt rejection and membrane fouling has been a major hindrance for the effective application of this membrane. Thus, a broad investigation has been carried out to address these problems, and among which co-solvent interfacial polymerization (CAIP) and the surface modification of substrates and active layers of RO membrane have been the most effective approaches for controlling and improving the surface properties of the PA-TFC membrane. In this review paper, the problems associated with the RO membrane processes and strategies has been discussed and addressed in detail. Furthermore, as the focus of this review, the major advancements in the strategies used for enhancement of RO membrane performance through CAIP, and surface modifications were scrutinized and summarized.

Structures, Properties, and Performances-Relationships of Polymeric Membranes for Pervaporative Desalination

For the fulfilment of increasing global demand and associated challenges related to the supply of clean-and-safe water, PV has been considered as one of the most attractive and promising areas in desalinating salty-water of varied salinities. In pervaporative desalination, the sustainability, endurance, and structural features of membrane, along with operating parameters, play the dominant roles and impart paramount impact in governing the overall PV efficiency. Indeed, polymeric- and organic-membranes suffer from several drawbacks, including inferior structural stability and durability, whereas the fabrication of purely inorganic membranes is complicated and costly. Therefore, recent development on the high-performance and cost-friendly PV membrane is mostly concentrated on synthesizing composite- and NCP-membranes possessing the advantages of both organic- and inorganic-membranes. This review reflects the insights into the physicochemical properties and fabrication approaches of different classes of PV membranes, especially composite- and NCP-membranes. The mass transport mechanisms interrelated to the specialized structural features have been discussed. Additionally, the performance potential and application prospects of these membranes in a wide spectrum of desalination and wastewater treatment have been elaborated. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives have been identified in developing and scaling up different high-performance membranes suitable for broader commercial applications.