Membrane distillation is an emerging separation technology with a high separation factor in water desalination. Ceramic membranes are increasingly used in membrane distillation because of high thermal and chemical stabilities. Coal fly ash is a promising ceramic membrane material with low thermal conductivity. In this study, three hydrophobic coal-fly-ash-based ceramic membranes were prepared for saline water desalination. The performances of different membranes in membrane distillation were compared. The effects of membrane pore size on permeate flux and salt rejection were researched. The coal-fly-ash-based membrane showed both a higher permeate flux and a higher salt rejection than the alumina membrane. As a result, using coal fly ash as the material for membrane fabrication can effectively increase the performance when applied to MD. Increasing the membrane pore size improved the permeate flux, but reduced the salt rejection. When the mean pore size increased from 0.15 μm to 1.57 μm, the water flux rose from 5.15 L·m-2·h-1 to 19.72 L·m-2·h-1, but the initial salt rejection was reduced from 99.95% to 99.87%. The hydrophobic coal-fly-ash-based membrane with a mean pore size of 0.18 μm exhibited a water flux of 9.54 L·m-2·h-1 and a salt rejection of higher than 98.36% in membrane distillation.
Keywords: ceramic membranes; coal fly ash; hydrophobic modification; membrane distillation; pore size; solid-state sintering.