Spinel-based ceramic membranes coupling solid sludge recycling with oily wastewater treatment

Mingliang Chen; Li Zhu; Jingwen Chen; Fenglin Yang; Chuyang Y Tang; Michael D Guiver; Yingchao Dong

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2019.115180

Spinel-based ceramic membranes coupling solid sludge recycling with oily wastewater treatment

Water Res. 2020 Feb 1:169:115180. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2019.115180. Epub 2019 Oct 12.

Authors

Mingliang Chen¹, Li Zhu², Jingwen Chen³, Fenglin Yang³, Chuyang Y Tang⁴, Michael D Guiver⁵, Yingchao Dong⁶

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, MOE), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, PR China; Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA, Delft, the Netherlands.
² Engineering Research Center of Environmental Materials and Membrane Technology of Hubei Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, MOE), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, PR China.
⁴ Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Engines, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, PR China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, MOE), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, PR China. Electronic address: ycdong@dlut.edu.cn.

PMID: 31669905
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2019.115180

Abstract

Highly efficient and economic treatment of wastewater sludges and wastewaters in one way is a challenging issue in the water treatment field. Herein we present a waste-to-resource strategy for rational fabrication of low-cost ceramic membranes, which simultaneously addresses the treatment of heavy metal-laden sludges and the separation of oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions. A thermal conversion mechanism is proposed for complicated reactions between simulated nickel-laden wastewater sludge and bauxite mineral. In addition to full stabilization and recycling of heavy metal wastewater sludges, rational tailoring of ceramic membrane structures can also be realized to achieve high water flux and favorable mechanical and surface properties. With rational structure design, the tailored spinel-based ceramic membranes exhibited high rejection and high flux (7473 LMH·bar^-1) simultaneously for separation of oily wastewater, outperforming other reported state-of-the-art ceramic membranes. The membrane fouling mechanism revealed the dominance of cake layer formation at low cross flow velocities, while a combined model of cake layer formation and pore blocking dominated membrane fouling at high cross-flow velocities. The proposed strategy can be potentially extended toward design of functional ceramic membranes derived from other heavy metal wastewater sludges and for other water treatment applications.

Keywords: Ceramic membrane; High flux; Membrane fouling; Oily wastewater; Wastewater sludge.

MeSH terms

Aluminum Oxide
Ceramics
Magnesium Oxide
Membranes, Artificial
Sewage
Wastewater*
Water Purification*

Substances

Membranes, Artificial
Sewage
Waste Water
spinell
Magnesium Oxide
Aluminum Oxide