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An indigenously developed low-cost clay-alumina-based ceramic microfiltration membrane of 19-channel configuration has been evaluated for degumming, dewaxing and deacidification of rice bran oil (RBO) miscella having different oil contents at pilot scale. Rice bran wax and soap particles in miscella will aggregate with changes in temperature. This suggests a technique for their effective separation. Low-temperature cross-flow membrane filtration was used for single-stage degumming-dewaxing and showed 70 % and 80 % removal of acetone insoluble residue from two RBO miscella samples, respectively. Color reduction was 50 %, and oryzanol retention was 70 %. NaOH was used for deacidification in a 10 % excess of that required based on the free fatty acid content in oil. This reduced free fatty acids to 0.2 %. Operating for 10 h with a 0.7 bar trans-membrane pressure, permeate fluxes of 15 and 8 L/m 2 hr were obtained for the degumming-dewaxing and deacidification operations, respectively. The process has advantages, such as high micronutrient content (1.56 % oryzanol) and negligible oil loss (2.6 %). Moreover, ceramic membrane processing of RBO miscella could be an effective pre-treatment step with respect to micronutrient enrichment, elimination of heating, neutral oil recovery and a viable option for solvent separation.

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An attempt has been made to explain the experimental observations regarding variation of critical current density with the film thickness between 3 and 65 μm in electrophoretically deposited YBa2Cu3O7−x films on silver (Ag) substrates. It is not possible to explain the phenomenon using the commonly believed concept of self-field degradation of critical current density of weak links between the grains. On the other hand, an increased grain-boundary resistance due to a lesser degree of silver penetration from the substrate with increasing film thickness is proposed to be the cause of the observed degradation of critical current density. The experimental data agree quite well with those theoretically calculated.

In this work, the high-quality ilmenite (FeTiO 3 ) membranes were grown on the clay-Al 2 O 3 support tube from microemulsion-derived FeTiO 3 powders by dip-coating method. FeTiO 3 powders were synthesized by reverse microemulsion method, using cyclohexane, Tween-80, Brij 30, Triton X-100, and n-butanol at different composition. The membranes as well as powders were finally characterized by removal of red dye from a simulated wastewater of textile industry in same conditions. The membrane separation process demonstrates the removal of dye coupled with permeation of water simultaneously, and the overall process may have great potential for wide industrial application.