Synthesis and characterization of metallic materials for membrane technology

Powder of metallic materials composed of Fe, Ni was proposed for membrane applications such as microfiltration devices. The powder was synthesized using thermal route of simultaneously sintering-reduction techniques. The resulting powder has specific porous structure and can be deposited on steel substrate. The formed phases were identified by X-ray phase analysis. The produced powder was characterized by reflected light microscope and scanning electron microscope along with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The reduction behavior of metal oxides was followed up by thermogravimetric techniques. The kinetics data obtained from reduction process were used to elucidate the reduction mechanism under isothermal condition. The microstructure changes accompanying sintering-reduction processes were investigated under different experimental parameters such as temperature, holding time and gas composition. The results show that pure Fe0.64Ni0.36 with relatively high porosity can be fabricated via reduction route. The presence of NiO plays a significant role in the reduction of iron oxide as well as in the structural changes accompanying the reduction processes. The particle size distribution of the produced metallic materials is being controlled under the different operation conditions to get a homogenous porous metallic structure with well defined porosity. The main advantage of using porous ferroalloy materials is their narrow size distribution leading to a well defined pore size distribution after sintering and reduction.