Full Description

Organic membranes are more widely used in industry today than are inorganicmembranes. They are found in a variety of pore sizes and formats, tailored tospecific applications. However, organic membranes exhibit a number of limitationscompared to inorganic membranes, in particular regarding thermal resistance,compatibility with organic solvents, microbial degradation and mechanicalstrength. However, they have not been extensively used in the past due to thedifficulty and high cost of manufacturing of ceramic membranes with small poresizes. In the 1970s with the development of the sol-gel process, ceramiccomposite membranes could be obtained with smaller pores and in a controlledmanner. A drawback of this technique is that it often involves strong acids andother toxic substances, such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and other solvents.Alumoxane derived membranes offer an environmentally friendly alternative for themanufacture of ceramic ultrafiltration membranes. The availability of membraneswith satisfactory properties for a broad range of application at competitivecosts will determine the future rate of growth of membrane processes. In thisstudy, acetic acid alumoxanes were prepared in the laboratory from powderedboehmite (Condea Vista) . Unsupported acetic acid alumoxane derived membraneswere also prepared. The resulting ceramics were characterized by nitrogenadsorption, desorption was used to measure surface area and pore sizedistribution. Average pore sizes were calculated from the adsorption branch ofthe isotherm. Pure water flux was measured for the supports and coated supportsto calculate their permeability. The MWCO of the samples was determined based onthe ASTM standard for the determination of the MWCO of flat ultrafiltrationmembranes with cut offs between 4,500 and 1,000,000 daltons. Includes 6 references.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 05/01/2001 Number of Pages: 4File Size: 1 file , 140 KB