The traditional dip-coating method for preparation of ceramic membranes requires a long drying time and easily produces drying defects. In this work, an improved dip-coating process was proposed. The UV curing technique was utilized to avoid crack formation and agglomeration of ceramic particles, for drying to be completed in a few minutes. Photosensitive resin and a photoinitiator were added into the aqueous ceramic suspension. Under the action of free radicals excited by ultraviolet light, a giant network formed in the green membrane within a short time which limits the migration of membrane particles. Experiments were performed to explore the influence of UV curing process on membrane properties and the optimum preparation conditions were obtained. Following a rapid drying treatment and firing, crack-free membranes were prepared, which exhibited a narrow pore size distribution centered at approximately 65.2 nm and a water permeance of 887 ± 48 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹. The largest pore size of the membrane was 85.7 nm while it could filter out 98.2% of the 100 nm monosize PS microsphere and the 60.1% of 60 nm, indicating its potential application in both membrane production efficiency and separation accuracy improvements.

Pristine and Pt-doped CuO nano-flowers were synthesized by a simple water bath heating method in this paper. Highly sensitive hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas sensors based on Pt-doped CuO nano-flowers were fabricated. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to examine the characteristics and morphology of materials. The sensing performances of sensors with different concentrations of Pt dopants were evaluated at different operating temperatures. The results indicated that the CuO sensor doped with 1.25 wt % Pt exhibited the highest response (R_g/R_a, where R_g is the resistance in gas, and R_a is the resistance in air) of 135.1 to 10 ppm H₂S at 40 ${}^{\circ }$C, which was 13.1 times higher than the response of a pure CuO sensor. Pt doping also plays an important role for the enhancement of H₂S selectivity against C₂H₅OH, NH₃, H₂, CH₃COCH₃, and NO₂.

A method called the precursor film firing method is proposed to improve the permeance of ceramic microfiltration membranes by avoiding intermediate layer and dip-coating process, and efficiently control the thickness of the separation layer. In this method a precursor film is prepared independently of the support by a film coating machine. This precursor film consists of two layers: Al₂O₃/PVA layer made of Al₂O₃ powder and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and polyvinyl butyral (PVB) layer. The precursor film is pasted on the support and fired to obtain membranes. Because the intermediate layer and dip-coating process are avoided in this method, the fabricated membranes show high permeance. For the fabricated membrane with average pore size = 0.18 μm and separation layer thickness = 10.7 μm, the permeance is 3890 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹. Also the separation layer thickness can be controlled efficiently. And the precursor film can be used on fabricate curved membranes such as cylindrical membranes.

A pore-sealing method for preparation of high-permeance alumina microfiltration (MF) membranes free of any intermediate layers is presented. It involves sequential coating of a polyvinyl butyral (PVB) layer and an alumina membrane precursor on the surface of the macroporous alumina support. An alumina MF membrane with no intermediate layers can be obtained on the support after pyrolysis of the PVB interlayer. The interlayer-free membrane prepared by this method has an average pore diameter of 0.26 μm and a water permeance of 1468 ± 81 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹ which is prominently higher than that of the ceramic membranes prepared with other techniques. The conspicuous increase of water permeance is speculated mainly due to the filtration resistance decrease of the interlayer-free ceramic membrane.