Obtaining rutile support membranes for nuclear waste treatment

Resumo

Ceramic membranes support were produced from commercial rutile titanium oxide for nuclear waste treatment from research activities at IEN. To obtain ceramic support, were prepared 3 suspensions containing corn starch as pore-forming agent in the proportion of 0, 15 and 30%. The suspensions containing 10% of PVA were dried in the spray dryer and the granulated powder was compacted in the disks form, sintered at 1050, 1100 and 1150 °C/1h. The effect of sintering temperature and the corn starch concentration was studied for determine the sintering temperature that would promote a porous support with permeability and mechanical strength adequate to ceramic support. The results shows that pore-forming agent was effective to promote porosity and good permeability and porosity increase with increasing corn starch content and tends to decrease with increasing sintering temperature. The support treated at 1050 ^oC shows poor mechanical strength and thus inappropriate for use as a support membrane.