Agarwalla, Ankit2025-01-102025-01-102024ROLL NO.186107002https://gyan.iitg.ac.in/handle/123456789/2804Supervisor: Mohanty, KaustubhaBiodiesel as a renewable energy source can provide an alternative to the alarmingly depleting energy from fossil fuels. Microalgae is an encouraging third-generation feedstock for the production of biodiesel as it has the capability of oil production throughout the year. Besides several advantages, commercial production of microalgal biomass feedstock is not considered sustainable due to its high production cost. In this context, recycling the culture media carry significant potential to reduce the overall cost for the long-term growth of microalgal industry. In this work, indigenous low-cost disc and tubular membranes were fabricated using naturally available kaolin as the key precursor. Different composition of kaolin (80-92 wt.%) and binder (8-20 wt.%) was used to optimize the raw material and binder composition. The optimized binder concentration in disc membrane was used to further fabricate tubular membranes. With increase in binder percentage from 8% to 20% in disc membranes, the percentage porosity, average pore size and water permeability decreased from 34.52% to 21.5%, 2.28 μm to 0.195 μm and 6.12×10-9 to 1.69×10-9 m Pa-1 s-1 respectively while flexural strength increased slightly from 7.1 MPa to 9.4 MPa. Hence, binder percentage of 8% i.e., 2% boric acid, 2% sodium metasilicate and 4% sodium carbonate was found to be optimum. Thereafter, tubular membranes will be fabricated using this binder concentration. The fabricated tubular membranes had porosity of ~26% - 47%, a pore diameter of 0.123-0.182 μm, water permeability of 4.2×10-8 – 17.1×10-8 m3 m-2 s-1 kPa-1, along with good mechanical and chemical strength.enThesis