One-step co-sintering of hierarchical mullite whisker/fiber membranes with gradient pore structures for effective filtration of dust-laden gas

Porous ceramic fiber membranes with high gas permeance have shown great potential for the treatment of dust-laden gas. However, a major challenge is posed by the micro or nano-sized solid particles which can easily block the pore channels of the fiber membranes due to the larger surface pore size. Therefore, in this work, a novel method was proposed for the in-situ growth of mullite whiskers around the surface of the mullite fibers. This method aimed to decorate the pore channels of the fiber membranes by using a layer-by-layer construction strategy. For this purpose, a dry-pressing technique was employed to prepare a “green” mullite fiber support. It was followed by the preparation of another “green” fiber layer with the addition of catalysts on this support. After the co-sintering process, hierarchical mullite whiskers with gradient pore structures were produced. The in-situ growth of mullite whiskers around the fibers decorated the pore structure. As a result, it helped in effectively capturing the solid particles in the dust-laden gas. Additionally, the co-sintering process significantly reduced the sintering consumption and fabrication period. Moreover, a detailed investigation was carried out on the construction parameters including the sintering system atmospheres, Si–Al sol addition content, AlF3 concentration, mechanism of whisker growth and stability. The findings showed that hierarchical mullite whisker/fiber membranes obtained from the proposed method had a mean pore size of 2.7 μm and gas permeance of ∼106 m3 m−2 h−1·kPa−1. The Darcy's permeability coefficient of the membranes was also higher than the membranes prepared from existing methods. Moreover, the optimized membrane showed 99.9% rejection of the solid particles in the dust-laden gas, including micron-size (2.5 μm) and nano-size (300 nm) solid particles. This work provides a novel method for the fabrication of hierarchical mullite whiskers with gradient pore structures having the capability to filter industrial dust-laden gas.