Mohsen Abbasi

Four types of low-cost, high-performance ceramic microfiltration membranes have been fabricated and characterized using different analytic approaches for oily wastewater treatment. Mullite, mullite-alumina (MA) with 10–50 wt% alumina, mullite-alumina-zeolite (MAZ) with 10–40 wt% zeolite/alumina and mullite-zeolite (MZ) with 10–50 wt% zeolite content have been made using local clays. Factors such as their pure water permeationflux, oil rejection performance and permeationflux (PF) have been compared. Experimental results showed that MA 50% membranes have the highest steady-state PF of 549 Lm?2h?1 among all the membranes at operating conditions with a cross-flow of velocity (CFV) = 1.5 m s?1, transmembrane pressure (TMP) = 3 bar and temperature (T) = 35 ?C. The lowest and highest oil rejection results for the membranes were 95.89% and 98.77% for MZ 10% and MZ 50% membranes, respectively. Also, Hermia’smodels accurately predict experimental data showing a PF decline over time during treatment.