Pre-Treatment and Turbidity Reduction of Sea Waters Using New Composite Ceramic Microfiltration Membranes with Iron Oxide Additive

In this research, an experimental study was carried out on the pre-treatment and turbidity removal of Persian Gulf water using cross flow microfiltration by new composite ceramic membranes. Three types of tubular microfiltration composite ceramic membranes that consisted of Mullite, Mullite/SiC, and Mullite/SiC/Fe2O3 with different compositions were fabricated at relatively low temperature (1250 °C) with extrusion and sintering for this purpose. Furthermore, changes in porosity, pore size, and mechanical strength were compared in Mullite membranes and composite membranes to find the most suitable membrane for turbidity removal from seawater. According to the results, the most suitable synthetic membrane was M/SiC/Fe10 membrane with 60:30:10 ratios of mullite, silicon carbide, and iron oxide with 64.6 ± 2% porosity, average pore size of 0.54 μm, 95.4% turbidity removal, pure water permeability of 3811 L/m2.h, and higher mechanical strength (22.4 MPa) compared to other fabricated membranes. Results of Hermia’s models for fouling modeling indicated that the dominant mechanism of blocking in all membranes was standard pore blocking with the best compliance with experimental data. Therefore, results demonstrated that the addition of Fe2O3 to silicon carbide ceramic microfiltration membranes, with a specific weight percentage, improves their mechanical properties and membrane performance for pre-treatment of seawaters.