Hollow fibre ceramic membranes are well-known to have unique characteristics, including superior thermal, chemical, and mechanical stabilities. The main drawback of ceramic membranes that limits their commercialisation is their high cost of raw materials. To overcome this disadvantage, a low-cost silica sand-based hollow fibre ceramic membrane (SS-HFCM) was successfully fabricated via combined phase inversion/sintering technique. Prior to fabrication, silica sand powder was first characterised using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. Furthermore, the morphology and mechanical strength were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and three-point bending test, respectively. The effects of two major fabrication process parameters (i.e., sintering temperature and ceramic content) on the mechanical strength, morphology, pure water flux (PWF), and oily-water separation of the SS-HFCM were examined. Based on the findings, the most suitable sintering temperature was 1,300 °C. Satisfactory morphological structure and strength of sponge- and finger-like voids at 55 wt. % ceramic powder loading was found to be advantageous for the characteristics of the fabricated SS-HFCM. The mechanical strength of 210 MPa was obtained at the sintering temperature and content loading of 1,300 °C and 57.5 wt. %, respectively. The mechanical strength of SS-HFCM obtained at 1,300 °C in this work is significantly higher than those reported in previous studies. Furthermore, enhanced oil-water separation performance was obtained with the highest oil rejection rate of 99.7%. This SS-HFCM has a satisfactory structure with functional inner and outer layers of separation, which can be beneficial for water treatment applications, such as microfiltration, ultrafiltration, membrane distillation, and membrane contactor.

众所周知，中空纤维陶瓷膜具有独特的特性，包括卓越的热，化学和机械稳定性。限制其商业化的陶瓷膜的主要缺点是其高昂的原材料成本。为了克服这一缺点，通过相转化/烧结相结合的技术成功地制造了低成本的石英砂基中空纤维陶瓷膜（SS-HFCM）。在制造之前，首先使用X射线荧光（XRF），X射线衍射（XRD），透射电子显微镜（TEM），Brunauer-Emmett-Teller（BET）和傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）对硅砂粉进行表征）分析。此外，使用扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和三点弯曲试验分别研究了形态和机械强度。研究了两个主要制造工艺参数（即烧结温度和陶瓷含量）对SS-HFCM的机械强度，形态，纯水通量（PWF）和油水分离的影响。根据这些发现，最合适的烧结温度为1,300°C。55 wt。％的海绵状和手指状空隙的形态结构和强度令人满意。发现％的陶瓷粉末负载量对于所制造的SS-HFCM的特性是有利的。在烧结温度和1,300°C和57.5 wt。％的含量负荷下获得210 MPa的机械强度。％， 分别。在这项工作中，在1300°C下获得的SS-HFCM的机械强度明显高于以前的研究报道。此外，提高了油水分离性能，最高拒油率达99.7％。该SS-HFCM具有令人满意的结构，具有功能性的内层和外层分离层，这对于水处理应用（例如微滤，超滤，膜蒸馏和膜接触器）可能是有益的。