Abstract
TiO₂ is usually used as a sintering aid to lower the sintering temperature of porous alumina membrane support. Two ways of the addition of TiO₂ are chosen: in-situ precipitation and in-situ hydrolysis. The results show that the distribution status of TiO₂ has an important effect on the property of porous alumina membrane support. In in-situ hydrolysis method, the nano-meter scale TiO₂ distributes evenly on the alumina particles' surface. The bending strength of the support increases sharply and the pore size distribution changes more sharply along with the content of TiO₂ which slightly increases from 0.3 wt.% to 0.4 wt.%. The distribution of the nano-meter scale TiO₂ is not so even added by in-situ precipitation method. Neither the bending strength nor the pore size distribution of the support is worse than that of the support added by in-situ hydrolysis even if the content of TiO₂ is high to 2 wt.%. The permeating flux has a similar tendency. Consequently, the porous alumina membrane support has the porosity of 30.01% and the bending strength of 77.33 MPa after sintering at 1650 °C for 2 h with the optimized TiO₂ content of 0.4 wt.% added by the in-situ hydrolysis method.