CENTRIFUGAL MEMBRANE FILTRATION
SpinTek Membrane Systems, Inc., the developer of a centrifugal membrane filtration technology, has engineered and developed a system for use within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Program. The technology uses supported microporous membranes rotating at high rpm, under pressure, to separate suspended and colloidal solids from liquid streams, yielding a solids-free permeate stream and a highly concentrated solids stream. This is a crosscutting technology that falls under the Efficient Separations and Processing Crosscutting Program, with potential application to tank wastes, contaminated groundwater, landfill leachate, and secondary liquid waste streams from other remediation processes, including decontamination and decommissioning systems. SpinTek II High Shear Rotary Membrane Filtration System is a unique compact crossflow membrane system that has large, demonstrable advantages in performance and cost compared to currently available systems: (1) High fluid shear prevents membrane fouling even with very high solids content; hazardous and radioactive components can be concentrated to the consistency of a pasty slurry without fouling. (2) Induced turbulence and shear across the membrane increases membrane flux by a factor of ten over existing systems and allows operation on fluids not otherwise treatable. (3) Innovative ceramic membrane and mechanical sealing technology eliminates compatibility problems with aggressive DOE waste streams. (4) System design allows rapid, simple disassembly for inspection or complete decontamination. (5) Produces colloidal- and suspended-solids-free filtrate without the addition of chemicals. The first phase of this project (PRDA maturity stage 5) completed the physical scale-up of the SpinTek unit and verified successful scale-up with surrogate materials. Given successful scale-up and DOE concurrence, the second phase of this project (PRDA maturity stage 6) will provide for the installation and operation of the full-scale two-stage SpinTek unit for treatment of a DOE waste-stream at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This technology has very broad application across the DOE system. Nineteen DOE technical needs areas (Appendix C) have been identified. Following successful full-scale demonstration for treatment of DOE wastes, this innovative technology will be rapidly deployed on a wide range of waste and process streams throughout the DOE system.
- Research Organization:
- SpinTek Membrane Systems, Inc.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC21-96MC33136
- OSTI ID:
- 859218
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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