Fabrication of flat ceramic microfiltration membrane from natural kaolinite for seawater pretreatment for desalination and wastewater clarification

The aim of this work is the manufacturing of flat microfiltration membrane made from Moroccan natural kaolinite clay and corn starch as porosity agent. The membrane was prepared by uniaxial pressing technique and sintering at 1,100 degrees C. The effect of starch on membrane features was investigated from 0 to 15 wt.%. The membrane has a diameter of 37.8 mm and a thickness of 2.3 mm. In order to optimize its properties, prepared membrane was characterized in terms of apparent porosity, water absorption, apparent density, mechanical strength, pore size, microstructure, and water permeability measurements. Experimental results showed that the membrane prepared with 10 wt.% of starch is considered as an optimized membrane which has an average pore size of 2.3 mu m, the mechanical strength of 20.2 MPa, and permeability of 2,129 L h(-1)m(-2) bar(-1). The optimized membrane was applied for pretreatment of raw seawater for desalination and clarification of agro-food effluent using dead-end filtration under pressure of 0.12 bar. Filtration results showed that turbidity rejection achieves 73% and 99%, respectively for raw seawater and agro-food model effluent.