Advance in preparation techniques of porous ceramic membranes

Porous ceramic membrane has been widely used in petroleum and chemical industries due to its chemical stability, mechanical strength, resistance to acid and alkali, thermal stability, and so on. The preparation techniques of porous ceramic membrane are the essential parts of its commercialization. A breakthrough in preparation techniques of porous ceramic membranes can be achieved by precisely controlling the microstructure, which is critical in improving overall performance of ceramic membranes. The advance in the past ten years in the techniques to lower the cost of ceramic membranes and prepare membranes with high permeability, high selectivity is reviewed. The trend of future development and the bottleneck problem of ceramic membranes are also discussed.