Sayong ball clay membrane for copper and nickel removal from effluent

Abstract

An adsorption filtration mechanism using porous ceramic membranes was proposed for the removal of heavy metals from the effluent of the UTM Lake. The effectiveness of the removal depends on kaolinite microparticle which is used as an adsorption agent in ceramic membranes. In this work, Sayong ball clay (SBC) from Malaysia was used in the preparation of the ceramic membrane. Sayong ball clay membranes were fabricated by gel casting (GC) and spark plasma sintering (SPS) methods. The effect of kaolinite and pore size on copper and nickel removal was investigated. X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), mercury porosimetry, and adsorption analysis were used to relate with the adsorption performance. It is found that kaolinite with the 14:1 ratio of monomers in the GC-SBC membrane performed the highest heavy metal removal.