Effective heavy metal removal through porous stainless-steel-net supported low siliceous zeolite ZSM-5 membrane

Removal of heavy metals is of great interest as drinkable water resources are dramatically declining in China. Most desalination techniques before are concentrated on polymeric membranes with laborious processes. To improve thermal, chemical and physical stability of these membranes, zeolite membranes appear to be optimal substitutes. The technique used here is reverse osmosis with the porous stainless-steel-net supported low siliceous zeolite ZSM-5 membrane (Si/Al = 20). The synthesized membrane is more compact, continuous and large-scaled, which shows high rejection rate (>99%), and the highly porous stainless-steel-net support and high hydrophilicity of the low siliceous zeolite ZSM-5 membrane make the flux increased a lot. Zn2+, Cd2+, Hg2+, Cu2+, Pb2+ and Cr3+ heavy metal cations were investigated. The synthesized low siliceous ZSM-5 membrane (Si/Al = 20) was characterized by X-ray Diffraction, Leica optics micrographs, field emission scanning electron microscopy and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer.