This technology involves a ceramic membrane and its manufacturing method, which enables simultaneous filtration and selective adsorption of specific heavy metals. It is produced by mixing aluminum oxide with pore-forming agents, extrusion binders, and heavy metal adsorbents like zero-valent iron (ZVI), followed by extrusion, drying, and sintering. It can be fabricated into hollow structures such as tubular, flat-tubular, honeycomb, monolith, or hollow fiber types.
Polymer membranes such as polystyrene, polyethersulfone, and PVDF, commonly used in wastewater treatment, have short replacement cycles due to poor wear, chemical, and heat resistance when exposed to industrial wastewater with wide pH ranges, high temperatures, and high concentrations or viscosities. Furthermore, they are limited to simple solid-liquid separation, making it difficult to selectively remove heavy metals from wastewater.
This technology preserves the pore structure by drying at 100–110°C while the pore-forming agent remains, and forms a uniform coating layer by dip-coating the inside and outside of the hollow membrane with a ceramic slurry containing the adsorbent. Using a module housing equipped with slurry inlets and blocking sections ensures even coating inside the hollow structure, achieving small pore sizes and high separation efficiency. It can be applied to industrial wastewater treatment, high-concentration waste liquid separation under extreme conditions, and catalyst-supported air purification or gas separation, providing a durable, multifunctional membrane to replace polymer membranes.
This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Environment for the development of high-performance ceramic microfilter application technology for the removal of hazardous heavy metals.
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