A fouling-resistant ceramic-supported polymer composite membrane was developed for removal of oil-in-water (O/W) microemulsions. The composite membrane was featured with an asymmetric three-layer structure

i.e.

a porous ceramic membrane substrate

a polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration sub-layer

and a polyamide/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite thin top-layer.The PES polymer was cast onto the tubular porous ceramic membrane with the sol-gel method

and the polyamide/PVA composite thin top-layer was fabricated with the interfacial polymerization method. The prepared composite membrane showed good performance for treating the O/W microemulsions with a mean diameter of 2.4 μm. At the operating pressure of 0.4 MPa

the hydraulic permeability remained steady at about 280 L8226;m-28226;h-1 after a period of operation

the oil concentration in the filtrate was always less than 1.15 mg8226;L-1

and the oil rejection coefficient was higher than 99.1% from the beginning of the operation.