Study of coupling photocatalysis and membrane separation using tubular ceramic membrane made from natural Moroccan clay and phosphate

Abstract

This paper is devoted to study the feasibility of combining photocatalytic degradation with membrane filtration for the removal of organic pollutants. As a result, we have successfully prepared low-cost microfiltration membranes based on clay and phosphate. It is expected that the phosphate and clay composite membrane can have multifunctional separation and photocatalysis simultaneously and this type of composite membrane can play an important role in the photocatalytic reaction in presence of TiO2 and the separation process. We then tested the efficiency of the direct coupling of photodegradation and filtration to determine the rate of release of TiO2 particles through the microfiltration membrane. However, we have seen that the recovery of TiO2 exceeds a 96%, as well as the removal of products from the photodecomposition of the reaction mixture in the membrane photocatalytic reactor. In our case the methylene blue elimination rate exceeds 75%.