Development and optimization of thermal sprayed ceramic microfiltration membranes

•New generation of Alumina (Al2O3) ceramic membranes was prepared.•We utilized inexpensive and highly scalable plasma spray and flame spray methods.•Membrane characteristics were analyzed based on spray methods and process parameters•Membranes showed excellent permeability comparable to some commercial membranes.•Size exclusion testing showed thicker membranes reject up to 96% of particulates.

We prepared a number of Alumina (Al2O3) microfiltration membranes fabricated using a well-established large throughput thermal spray (TS) technique. In order to study the filtration characteristics and performance of the thermal spray membranes, a variety of microstructures were fabricated by the varying spray process, deposition parameters and the source materials. We characterized the prepared membranes using XRD (X-ray Diffraction), EDX (Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy), SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), pore size analysis and dead end filtration tests. Permeability and rejection rate of the sprayed membranes were comparable to some of the commercially available inorganic membranes with the advantage of being highly scalable and potentially orders of magnitude cheaper than the commercially available ceramic membranes.