Described are porous, sintered inorganic bodies that include multiple layers made from different types of metal particles, that may be useful as filter membranes, and also to methods of making and using the porous, sintered inorganic bodies.

A filter for the filtration of a fluid, such as a liquid, includes or is constituted by a support element made from a porous ceramic material, at least a portion of the surface of the support element being covered with a porous membrane separating layer, the membrane separating layer being constituted essentially of silicon carbide (SiC), its porosity being between 10% and 70% by volume, the median diameter of its pores being between 50 nanometers and 500 nanometers, its mean thickness being between 1 micrometer and 30 micrometers, and its tortuosity being less than 1.7.

There is provided an inorganic hierarchical porous membrane comprising at least two layers, wherein each layer of the at least two layers comprises a different average pore size as compared to another layer of the at least two layers, and wherein the membrane comprises a patterned surface. There is also provided a method of forming the membrane.

The Invention relates to a method for preparing a multichannel hollow fiber membrane. According to a certain ratio, ceramic powder, a macromolecular polymer, an organic solvent, and a dispersant are mixed evenly to prepare a membrane casting solution; and after bubble removing processing is performed on the membrane casting solution, a membrane green body is formed with the cooperation of a multichannel hollow fiber die and phase inversion. After the membrane green body is roasted at a high temperature, a multichannel ceramic hollow fiber membrane is formed. The multichannel ceramic hollow fiber membrane has an asymmetric structure and a skeleton structure in an inner cavity and can meet the strength and flux requirements of a ceramic hollow fiber membrane.

A thin micro-porous membrane sheet and filtering device using it is presented. The membrane sheet includes a thin porous metal sheet of thickness between 20 and 200 μm with a porous ceramic coating of thickness less than 25 μm on at least one of its surfaces. The porous metal sheet has mean pore sizes at micro and sub-micrometer level and has a surface substantially free of pores greater than 10 micrometers. The ceramic coating layer may be made of particles with a mean particle size in a range of 10 to 300 nm and contains certain sintering promoters. The ceramic coating is sintered with the metal sheet in non-oxidizing environment at lower temperatures than typical ceramic membranes. The thin membrane sheet is used to filter fine particulates from micrometers to nanometers from a liquid or gas stream. The thin membrane sheet may be assembled into a filter device having high surface area packing density and straight mini-flow channels.

A porous support includes a base body, a supporting layer, and a topmost layer. The supporting layer is disposed between the base body and the topmost layer, and makes contact with the topmost layer. A ratio of a porosity of the topmost layer to a porosity of the supporting layer is greater than or equal to 1.08. A ratio of a thickness of the topmost layer to a thickness of the supporting layer is less than or equal to 0.9.

Described are porous sintered metal bodies and methods of making porous sintered metal bodies by additive manufacturing methods.

Processes for manufacturing continuous laterally graded porous membranes are disclosed. Such processes utilize freeze casting techniques with a continuous varying solids loading method to make laterally graded porous membranes. Also disclosed are laterally graded porous membranes.

Disclosed are a ceramic membrane for water treatment using oxidation-treated SiC and a method for manufacturing the same. An object of the present invention is to manufacture a ceramic membrane for water treatment, which can be sintered at a low temperature of 1,050° C. or less, in which a SiO.sub.2 oxide layer formed during an oxidation process induces volume expansion so as to prevent defects due to the contraction of a coating layer during general sintering. The ceramic membrane for water treatment using the oxidation treated SiC includes a porous ceramic support layer; and a SiC layer formed on the porous ceramic support layer and including SiC particles on which a SiO.sub.2 oxide layer formed on a surface thereof.

The present invention relates to a method of controlling a defect structure in an MFI zeolite membrane and a method of separating xylene isomers using the MFI zeolite membrane produced by the method, and more particularly, to a method of controlling a defect structure in an MFI zeolite membrane that improves the performance of separating a xylene isomer by reducing the amount and size of defects formed in the MFI membrane structure when removing organic-structure-directing agents in the membrane through calcination at a low temperature using ozone.