Development of a Novel 3D Printed Ceramic Membranes for Efficient Water Treatment and Wastewater Reclamation

​Grant funding 2022-2024
Ministry of Education and Sciences

The project’s goal is to develop an innovative method that will solve a problem of water scarcity in Kazakhstan and to propose technology that will enhance water reclamation processes, which will drive down the cost of reclaimed water and facilitate improved environmental clean-up of contaminated water supplies around the world.

Currently the membrane separation techniques are recognized as the most efficient treatment technology. Conventional polymeric membranes are a powerful tool for desalination, water treatment, reclamation of municipal and industrial wastewaters, etc. However, such drawbacks as fouling and as result of it frequent membrane cleaning and decreased mechanical stability were pushing scientists to look for other materials. For instance, titanium, alumina, zirconium and others are used for fabrication of ceramic membranes. Ceramic membranes are demonstrating better thermal, chemical, biological, mechanical stability and as result increased lifetime. On the other hand, modern fabrication techniques do not allow the production of ceramic membranes in the reverse osmosis pore size range. This project is focusing on development of non-complex fabrication protocol of the ceramic membranes by 3D printing technology. The issues related to the pore size will be addressed via heterogeneous and/or homogenous catalysis.

We started to investigate removal of emerging micro-pollutants by commercially available ceramic membranes (including the stage of catalysis). These findings later will be compared with the results that will be obtained for 3D printed ceramic membranes (newly proposed method). Current and next stages of the study: acquisition, installation and configuration of a 3D printer. Printing of ceramic membranes and characterization of the synthesized material. New 3D printed ceramic membranes will be tested for their potential ability to remove emerging micro-contaminants and compared with those of commercially available ceramic membranes (including catalytic reactions). Analyze data, prepare scientific papers and publish in journals (according to the calendar plan).