Co-pressing and co-sintering preparation of cost-effective and high-performance asymmetric ceramic membrane for oily wastewater treatment

High-performance asymmetric ceramic membranes have shown great potential in wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, high production cost, which results from expensive raw materials, high energy consumption, and complicated preparation process, hinders their large-scale production and application. Herein, a simple and cost-effective co-pressing and co-sintering method was proposed to prepare thin defect-free asymmetric ceramic membranes. This method overcomes the bottleneck of preparing thin asymmetric ceramic membrane by co-pressing. The membrane with a cornstarch content of 20 wt% and sintered at 1300 °C possessed large water permeance (3640 L·m −2 ·h −1 ·bar −1 ), high permeability (steady-state feed permeance > 1000 L·m −2 ·h −1 ·bar −1 ) and selectivity (rejection rate > 99.6%), as well as excellent oil fouling resistance and regeneration performance. The fouling mechanism of the membrane was in accord with cake filtration for the whole separation process (3 h), although multiple fouling mechanisms might occur simultaneously in the initial filtration stage. This study indicates that co-pressing and co-sintering is a quite promising method for fabricating high-performance and cost-effective ceramic membrane.