YI Meiyu¹, XING Chen ¹, CAI Huangyue¹, ZHANG Xing², HU Li², HAO Wei¹, ZHAO Xiaofeng¹, GUO Fangwei¹

(1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China; 2. Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, Shanghai 201109, China)

Abstract: Carbon-ceramic hollow fiber membranes (HFM) was fabricated by using the phase inversion method combined with vacuum sintering. Porosity, pore size distribution, bending strength, permeability and iodine adsorption capability of the carbon-ceramic fiber membranes were studied in comparison with those of the ceramic hollow fiber membrane sintered in air. Fiber membranes with porosity of 35-55% could be fabricated by controlling the sintering temperature and vacuum pressure. The color of hollow fiber membranes sintered in vacuum was black, due to the infiltration of 0.20-0.78wt.% amorphous carbon. The presence of the carbon had a great effect on microstructure and properties of the ceramic membranes. The inhibition effect of the carbon on sintering was significantly increased with decreasing sintering pressure. The size of the small pores in fiber membranes was decreased and the fraction of the small pores was increased, leading to a decrease in their permeability. However, the iodine adsorption of the fiber membranes was increased from 0.60 mg/g to 1.46 mg/g, owing to the increased specific surface area. This method provides a new way to fabricate the carbon-ceramic fiber membranes with promising mechanical stability and excellent adsorption capability.
Key words: yttria-stabilized zirconia; ceramic hollow fiber membrane; phase inversion method; sintering; iodine wastewater