Abstract

Suspension plasma spraying (SPS) is an emerging versatile and scalable coating technology for deposition of sub-micron sized particles on different substrates to generate coatings with fine microstructures and high mechanical and physical properties. This work, was the first attempt to fabricate ceramic filtration membrane with SPS technique.
Porous pressure driven ceramic filtration membranes with asymmetric micro structures are effective tools for removing pollutants in many industries. Depending on the contaminants of concern, submicron to a few micron-sized pores are essential for this application. Suspension plasma spray enables deposition of a few microns to nano-sized particles to generate such a microstructure. Titanium dioxide membrane has gained interest as water treatment filter due to its mechanical, chemical and thermal stability, its nontoxicity, availability and photocatalytic property.
The promising results of this study confirmed the potential of suspension plasma spray technique as an emerging process in ceramic membrane manufacturing. Porous water permeable titanium dioxide membrane with 14% of open porosity and considerable water flux was produced, in which the network of open pores was generated by accumulation of un-melted and re-solidified particles. In addition, SPS titanium dioxide membrane exhibited photocatalytic property.