Development of Affordable Ceramic Microfiltration Membrane Using Rice Husk as a Pore Former for Brewery Water Treatment

Abstract

The creation of a flat microfiltration membrane using natural Nsu kaolinite clay and rice husk as a pore former was achieved using the solid state method of membrane preparation. The preparation conditions were the amount of kaolinite (5–15 wt%), sintering temperature (900–1100 ◦C) and sintering time (1-3 h) and response surface methods based on Box–Behnken design was employed in the membrane preparation. Optimization took place with the use of desirability function and the optimal membrane possesses the following characteristics: 44.4% porosity, 1566.6L h− 1m− 2 bar− 1 of permeability, 35.97MPa mechanical strength and an average pore size of 0.8817 µm. The produced, optimized membrane was used in the purification, through microfiltration of brewery borehole water into brewery strike water and results show that Nsu kaolinite/ricehusk optimized membrane was able reduce turbidity, conductivity, total suspended solids and total dissolved solids to acceptable brewery standard with percentage of rejection of 83.8%, 77.7%, 90.5% and 73.00% respectively. The pH was also within the acceptable boundaries when it comes to brewery standard as most brewery strike water tend towards neutrality.