merged

Effects of Sintering Time on Natural Ceramic Membrane for the Pretreatment
of Seawater
Lai Mei Hui
Supervisor: Dr. Asmadi Ali @ Mahmud
Bachelor of Technology (Environment)
School of Ocean Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu
Desalination of seawater has become a major concern due to water scarcity. Although
seawater reverse osmosis is a good desalination technology but its membrane fouling
rapidly. Therefore, the ceramic membrane (c/m) was chosen for pre-treatment since
it is high in thermal and mechanical stability and it is not easy to fouling compared to
polymeric membranes. Then, the low cost natural ceramic membranes can be
fabricated by using natural clay and sawdust with preparation method as slip casting
and sintering method. The results showed that the porosity of the membranes
decreased as the sintering time increased whereas the density, mechanical strength
increased. However, there was no significant difference for pure water permeation as
sintering time increased. The removal of the TSS and turbidity can be reached above
70% and 87% whereas salinity can only be reached 22-34%. As, result, the c/m-120
had the best performance combined with its characteristics.
34 | U M T U N D E R G R A D U A T E R E S E A R C H D A Y 2019