Extensive review about industrial and laboratory dynamic filtration modules: Scientific production, configurations and performances

In any membrane filtration, the prediction of permeate flux is critical to calculate the membrane surface required, which is an essential parameter for scaling-up, equipment sizing, and cost determination. For this reason, several models based on phenomenological or theoretical derivation (such as gel-polarization, osmotic pressure, resistance-in-series, and fouling models) and non-phenomenological models have been developed and widely used to describe the limiting phenomena as well as to predict the permeate flux. In general, the development of models or their modifications is done for a particular synthetic model solution and membrane system that shows a good capacity of prediction. However, in more complex matrices, such as fruit juices, those models might not have the same performance. In this context, the present work shows a review of different phenomenological and non-phenomenological models for permeate flux prediction in UF, and a comparison, between selected models, of the permeate flux predictive capacity. Selected models were tested with data from our previous work reported for three fruit juices (bergamot, kiwi, and pomegranate) processed in a cross-flow system for 10 h. The validation of each selected model’s capacity of prediction was performed through a robust statistical examination, including a residual analysis. The results obtained, within the statistically validated models, showed that phenomenological models present a high variability of prediction (values of R-square in the range of 75.91–99.78%), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) in the range of 3.14–51.69, and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) in the range of 0.22–2.01 among the investigated juices. The non-phenomenological models showed a great capacity to predict permeate flux with R-squares higher than 97% and lower MAPE (0.25–2.03) and RMSE (3.74–28.91). Even though the estimated parameters have no physical meaning and do not shed light into the fundamental mechanistic principles that govern these processes, these results suggest that non-phenomenological models are a useful tool from a practical point of view to predict the permeate flux, under defined operating conditions, in membrane separation processes. However, the phenomenological models are still a proper tool for scaling-up and for an understanding the UF process.

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0375/11/5/368/pdf

Prediction of Permeate Flux in Ultrafiltration Processes: A Review of Modeling Approaches.

The efforts to improve the stability of membrane filtration in applications for wastewater treatment or the purification of drinking water still dominate the research in the field of membrane technology. Various factors that cause membrane fouling have been explored to find the solution for improving the stability of the filtration and prolong membrane lifetime. The present work explains the filtration performance of a hollow fiber membrane that is fabricated from polyethersulfone-2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl phosphorylchloline while using a sodium alginate (SA) feed solution. The filtration process is designed in a pressure driven cross-flow module using a single piece hollow fiber membrane in a flow of outside-inside We investigate the effect of Ca and Mg ions in SA solution on the relative permeability, membrane resistance, cake resistance, and cake formation on the membrane surface. Furthermore, the performance of membrane filtration is predicted while using mathematical models that were developed based on Darcy’s law. Results show that the presence of Ca ions in SA solution has the most prominent effect on the formation of a cake layer. The formed cake layer has a significant effect in lowering relative permeability. The developed models have a good fit with the experimental data for pure water filtration with R2 values between 0.9200 and 0.9999. When treating SA solutions, the developed models fit well with experimental with the best model (Model I) shows R2 of 0.9998, 0.9999, and 0.9994 for SA, SA + Ca, and SA + Mg feeds, respectively.

The Effect of Ca and Mg Ions on the Filtration Profile of Sodium Alginate Solution in a Polyethersulfone-2-(methacryloyloxy) Ethyl Phosphorylchloline Membrane

The expected growth of membrane technology in protein recovery from wastewater is largely impeded by operational non-idealities like concentration polarization and membrane fouling. Two independent concepts, namely, the Dynamic Shear Enhanced (DSE) filtration and turbulence promoters were introduced decades earlier to remediate the problems. However, no systematic effort was undertaken to explore the synergy of the two process intensification schemes. In this study, we have investigated the effects of simple wire-type turbulence promoter on a specific class of DSE membrane modules, the spinning basket filtration units. The maximum flux improvement with synthetic wastewater (i.e., Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA)-water solution) was 445%, whereas for the real dairy effluent, the respective enhancement levelled off at 204%. The lower level of flux enhancement for real wastewater may be attributed to the severe fouling caused by the casein micelle. The increase of power consumption in all promoter-fitted configurations was limited to 9% only. Thus, turbulence promoter-integrated spinning basket group of membrane modules are confirmed to be much superior relative to other devices in protein recovery from wastewater. Our results are also supported by corroborating computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of elevated shear and high turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates for all promoter-fitted configurations. The present outcomes clearly recommend the application of turbulence promoters in DSE modules to maximally increase the protein recovery from wastewater even at concentrations where the standard cross-flow systems are apprehended to be non-functional. 

Application of turbulence promoter in protein recovery from food wastewater by dynamic shear enhanced ultrafiltration

Spinning basket membrane module is a special type of shear-enhanced device with inbuilt cleaning facility. In this article, the performance of this module has been reported in the ultrafiltration o...

Performance characterization and steady-state modelling of spinning basket membrane module

Design, performance characterization and hydrodynamic modeling of intermeshed spinning basket membrane (ISBM) module

Characterization and modeling of radial flow membrane (RFM) module in ultrafiltration

Membrane separation is a well-accepted modern downstream technique with low energy budget relative to conventional separation processes, such as distillation, absorption, and liquid-liquid extraction. However, the process of membrane separation suffers from the serious drawback of transient flux decline from the start-up to the steady state because of two well-known operational non-idealities, namely concentration polarization and membrane fouling. Dynamic shear-enhanced (DSE) modules, initially developed couple of decades earlier, are able to effectively counter the problem of transient flux decline upon generating feed flow rate-independent high shear stress at the membrane surface. Yet with all its advancement, even the most efficient DSE module cannot totally arrest the problem of permeate decline, and therefore, periodic membrane cleaning is necessary. The present article illustrates the design and performance characteristics of a self-cleaning enabled DSE module in treatment of pine oil-water emulsion. The module has been named as Intermeshed Spinning Basket Membrane (ISBM) module as it consists of two intermeshed spinning baskets fitted with rectangular membranes on their alternate sides. The maximum permeate flux as high as 5.76 × 10−4 L m−2 h−1 was recorded at a transmembrane pressure of 3.92 bar. Moreover, after each cleaning run of only 5-min duration, 75–89% flux regeneration was achieved in all the experimental runs.

Mithu Naskar

Papers

Design, performance characterization and hydrodynamic modeling of intermeshed spinning basket membrane (ISBM) module

Characterization and modeling of radial flow membrane (RFM) module in ultrafiltration

Performance of Intermeshed Spinning Basket Membrane Module in Ultrafiltration of Oil-Water Emulsion

Performance characterization and steady-state modelling of spinning basket membrane module