Water desalination using ceramic membrane distillation

In order to avoid hydrophilic behaviour of ceramic membranes prepared with metal oxides, alumina and zirconia membranes with 200 and 50 nm pore diameters were grafted with fluoroalkylsilanes. The grafting was controlled by TGA, and the hydrophobicity was characterised by water contact angle and permeability measurements. Results show that surfaces have hydrophobic behaviour with high values of contact angle. Grafted membranes were characterised by measuring the outlet pressure. The hydrophobic membranes were tested in a membrane distillation process. NaCl solution was used as the salt solution. This is the first example of membrane distillation using ceramic membranes.