Low-temperature sintering of multifunctional SiC catalytic membrane for synergistic emission control of toluene and dust

SiC catalytic membranes have shown great potential in dust and atmospheric pollutant emission control. However, their high sintering temperature (up to 1850 °C) and the ‘trade-off’ effect between its gas permeance and catalytic performance have hindered their widespread application. In this study, a high-performance CuO-loaded SiC catalytic membrane was fabricated to address the above issues using a liquid phase sintering and surficial reconstruction (LSSR) strategy. The low melting point of CuO enables the liquid phase sintering of CuO-SiC membrane at a significantly reduced temperature of 1040 °C, and the formation of CuO nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) on bulk CuO in CuO-SiC membrane (CuO-NPs/CuO-SiC) is achieved through a surficial reconstruction process. The resulting CuO-NPs/CuO-SiC catalytic membrane exhibits a high gas permeance of 275.8 m³·m⁻²·h⁻¹·kPa⁻¹ and a bending strength of 14.2 MPa. The CuO-NPs/CuO-SiC catalytic membrane also displays complete (100 %) toluene oxidation and PM_2.5 filtration efficiencies at 280 °C, as well as enhanced water vapor resistance and long-term stability. The LSSR was successfully applied to fabricate an CuO-NPs/CuO-Al₂O₃ catalytic membrane, which shows complete toluene oxidation and PM_2.5 filtration efficiency at 300 °C, demonstrating that LSSR is readily extended to fabricating other ceramic and metal-ceramic-based catalytic membranes.