Low‐cost clay‐based ceramic membrane for dairy industry wastewater treatment

Abstract This work aims to prepare low‐cost ceramic membranes to be used in a filtration process. The manufacturing of ceramic membranes uses the uniaxial dry pressing method. The raw materials from Tunisia, specifically clay, dolomite, and calcite, use organic waste as pore‐forming agents. This study began with the characterization of the raw material to choose the best condition for membrane preparation. After the characterization, the ceramic supports were sintered at 950°C, 1000°C, and 1050°C for 2 h to obtain flat ceramic membranes of 25 mm in diameter. Critical parameters for the membrane performance such as porosity, density, mechanical strength, gas permeability, and water flux were determined. The best results were for the support made of 50% clay, 10% dolomite, 10% calcite, and 30% organic waste sintered at 1000°C with a porosity of 37% and a diametrical compression strength of 3.1 MPa. It showed a gas permeability of about 2624 L/h/m 2 /bar at 1.4 bar and a water flux of 1010 L/h/m 2 at a pressure of 0.9 bar. Three membranes were effectively tested to remove the fat in a solution containing 10% milk.