Membrane fouling is regarded as a major obstacle in the use of membrane separation for water
treatment. Constant transmembrane pressure experiments were evaluated in dead-end membrane
filtration. The hydrodynamics of two filter cleaning methods, backwashing and air-scrubbing, were studied at a transmembrane pressure (TMP) of
1.0 kgf/cm2 since its flux was not proportional to high TMP. The method
of air-scrubbing proved more effective than the method of water backwashing, which had little effect
once membrane fouling occurred. It
also should be noted that the shortening of intermittent physical cleaning time
prevented the membranes from fouling in the case of high turbidity. On the other hand, not
much flux difference was observed in the 4 ranges of constant TMP (0.15, 0.30, 0.45 and 1.0 kgf/cm2) using artificial raw
water (controlled to 20 degrees Celsius). The flux declined
from the initial flux of 0.529 m/hr when the transmembrane pressure was 1.0 kgf/cm2 compared with
0.30 and 0.45 kgf/cm2 TMP. As a result, during steady state performance the same flux (0.095 m/hr) was
obtained in the range of 0.30 to 1.0 kgf/cm2. It is noted that flux declined quickly in the initial filtration
time. Thus, 0.30 kgf/cm2 was an optimal TMP
for controlling fouling under constant pressure. Includes 25 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 450 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 10 |
| Published : | 03/05/2003 |
