Effect of coagulation on fouling rate and cleanability of ultrafiltration membranes
- Florida International Univ., Miami, FL (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Among the membrane filtration techniques, continuous cross-flow ultrafiltration (UF) is an innovative method to separate solid/liquid or liquid/liquid phases at a lower pressure of 5--150 psi compared to reverse osmosis (RO) in which the applied pressure is an order of magnitude higher. Recently, attempts have been made to combine processes of UF and other treatments for many applications. However, there is very little knowledge about the filtration process which combined coagulation and UF, and very few attempts have been made to apply coagulated UF to the treatment of fuel oil contaminated water. During the UF treatment of organic contaminants rapid declines in flux will occur due to the membrane fouling. Oil as a foulant plants an important role in the flux decrease. However, there are very limited pretreatment processes which can effectively remove fuel oil from water and hence solve the fouling problem. The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a simple method for reducing UF membrane fouling which is caused by fuel oils in feed water. In this simple method, a coagulant was added into the feed water contaminated by fuel oils during the cross-flow UF treatment (coagulated UF). In this investigation, turbidity and petroleum hydrocarbon removal efficiency, permeate flux and membrane fouling potential were evaluated by a series of batch experiments. The mechanisms by which the membrane fouling was significantly reduced by coagulation were discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 395299
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9505206--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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