Journal of Advanced Research in Materials Science 39, Issue 1 (2017) 1-7 1 Journal of Advanced Research in Materials Science Journal homepage: www.akademiabaru.com/arms.html ISSN: 2289-7992 Synthesis and characterization of silica ceramic membranes via sol-dip coating Nor Amyra Zulianey Kahlib 1 , Farah Diana Mohd Daud 1,* , Maizirwan Mel 2 , Ahmad Zahirani Ahmad Azhar 1 , Noor Azlina Hassan 1 1 Department of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering, Kulliyyah of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Jalan Gombak, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Department of Biotechnology Engineering, Kulliyyah of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Jalan Gombak, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 2 July 2016 Received in revised form 1 February 2017 Accepted 4 August 2017 Available online 13 November 2017 The application of inorganic membrane as one of the methods for gas separation process has proven to show the greatest potential when compared to other methods. Ceramic membranes are considered as one of the many high potential inorganic membranes for this purpose. Current development of ceramic membrane focuses on the reduction of pore size for ceramic membrane up to nanometer scale without pinholes or cracking. Thus, in recent work, the silica ceramic membranes via sol dip-coating have been synthesized by using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), distilled water and ethyl alcohol as sol. The influences of number of dipping have been examined. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results of the fabricated silica membrane show the presence of silica element and that each membrane possesses a periodic structure with each number of dipping. The IR adsorption from Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) indicates the presence of functional group O-Si-O and Si-CH 3 . The intensity of these functional groups increases as the dipping time increase. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) results show that the number of visible pores on the surface of the ceramic support diminished after modification of ceramic membrane, with the number of silica particles increasing linearly with number of dipping. Thus, the synthesized silica ceramic membrane with good structure and chemical properties has shown great potential for biogas separation application. Keywords: gas separation, ceramic membrane, sol-dip coating, number of dipping Copyright © 2017 PENERBIT AKADEMIA BARU - All rights reserved * Corresponding author. E-mail address: farah_diana@iium.edu.my (Farah Diana Mohd Daud) Penerbit Akademia Baru Open Access