Permeation membrane performance

A key factor determining the performance of ultrafiltration membranes is concentration polarization due to macromolecules retained at the membrane surface. In ultrafiltration, both solvent and macromolecules are carried to the membrane surface by the solution permeating the membrane. Because only the solvent and small solutes permeate the membrane, macromolecular solutes accumulate at the membrane surface. The rate at which the rejected macromolecules can diffuse away from the membrane surface into the bulk solution is relatively low. This means that the concentration of macromolecules at the surface can increase to the point that a gel layer of rejected macromolecules forms on the membrane surface, becoming a secondary barrier to flow through the membrane. In most ultrafiltration appHcations this secondary barrier is the principal resistance to flow through the membrane and dominates the membrane performance. 

Zeolite A is a very successful membrane for separation of water from alcohols, but it suffers from stability issues under acid conditions [23]. Usually, a Hquid phase should be avoided and, for this reason, vapor permeation is preferred. Recent developments show that the hydrophilic MOR [23] and PHI [50] membranes are more stable under acidic conditions in combination with a good membrane performance. 

A continuous cross-flow filtration process has been utilized to investigate the effectiveness in the separation of nano sized (3-5 nm) iron-based catalyst particles from simulated Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalyst/wax slurry in a pilot-scale slurry bubble column reactor (SBCR). A prototype stainless steel cross-flow filtration module (nominal pore opening of 0.1 pm) was used. A series of cross-flow filtration experiments were initiated to study the effect of mono-olefins and aliphatic alcohol on the filtration flux and membrane performance. 1-hexadecene and 1-dodecanol were doped into activated iron catalyst slurry (with Polywax 500 and 655 as simulated FT wax) to evaluate the effect of their presence on filtration performance. The 1-hexadecene concentrations were varied from 5 to 25 wt% and 1-dodecanol concentrations were varied from 6 to 17 wt% to simulate a range of FT reactor slurries reported in literature. The addition of 1-dodecanol was found to decrease the permeation rate, while the addition of 1-hexadecene was found to have an insignificant or no effect on the permeation rate. 

Recently, it was shown that the hydraulic permeation model could explain the response of the membrane performance to variations in external gas pressures in operating fuel cells. i Figure 6.15 shows data for the PEM resistance in an operational PEFC,... 

When the membrane performs only a separation function and has no catalytic activity, two membrane properties arc of importance, the permeability and the selectivity which is given by the separation factor. In combination with a given reaction, two process parameters are of importance, the ratio of the permeation rate to the reaction rate for the faster permeating component (c.g. a reaction product such as hydrogen in a dehydrogenation reaction) and the separation factors (permselectivities) of all the other components (in particular those of the reactants) relative to the faster permeating gas. These permselectivities can be expressed as the ratios of the permeation rates of... 

The membrane performance for separations is characterized by the flux of a feed component across the membrane. This flux can be expressed as a quantity called the permeability (P), which is a pressure- and thickness-normalized flux of a given component. The separation of a feed mixture is achieved by a membrane material that permits a faster permeation rate for one component (i.e., higher permeability) over that of another component. The efficiency of the membrane in enriching a component over another component in the permeate stream can be expressed as a quantity called selectivity or separation factor. Selectivity (0 can be defined as the ratio of the permeabilities of the feed components across the membrane (i.e., a/b = Ta/Tb, where A and B are the two components). The permeability and selectivity of a membrane are material properties of the membrane material itself, and thus these properties are ideally constant with feed pressure, flow rate and other process conditions. However, permeability and selectivity are both temperature-dependent... 

The requirement of hydrophilicity in barrier materials has been widely accepted, but the mechanism by which it affects membrane performance, especially for the permselectivity, is not fully understood. Cellulose acetate and some kinds of polyamides and their analogues featured in the present review have both hydraulic permeability and permselectivity, while most highly hydrophilic materials have high permeability for water and show unselective permeation for ions and organic solutes. 

An important value of a permeation model is not simply its ability to correlate experimental data, but rather to provide a framework for understanding the principal factors controlling membrane performance. The dual mode model is derived from... 

The layer of solution immediately adjacent to the membrane surface becomes depleted in the permeating solute on the feed side of the membrane and enriched in this component on the permeate side. Equivalent gradients also form for the other component. This concentration polarization reduces the permeating component s concentration difference across the membrane, thereby lowering its flux and the membrane selectivity. The importance of concentration polarization depends on the membrane separation process. Concentration polarization can significantly affect membrane performance in reverse osmosis, but it is usually well controlled in industrial systems. On the other hand, membrane performance in ultrafiltration, electrodialysis, and some pervaporation processes is seriously affected by concentration polarization. 

This is called the membrane-selectivity-limited region, in which the membrane performance is determined only by the membrane selectivity and is independent of the pressure ratio. There is, of course, an intermediate region between these two limiting cases, in which both the pressure ratio and the membrane selectivity affect the membrane system performance. These three regions are illustrated in Figure 8.13, in which the calculated permeate concentration ( , ) is plotted versus pressure ratio pressure ratio of 1, feed pressure equal to the permeate pressure, no separation is achieved by the membrane. As the difference between the feed and permeate pressure increases,... 

Equation (9.1) is the preferred method of describing membrane performance because it separates the two contributions to the membrane flux the membrane contribution, P /C and the driving force contribution, (pio — p,r). Normalizing membrane performance to a membrane permeability allows results obtained under different operating conditions to be compared with the effect of the operating condition removed. To calculate the membrane permeabilities using Equation (9.1), it is necessary to know the partial vapor pressure of the components on both sides of the membrane. The partial pressures on the permeate side of the membrane, p,e and pje, are easily obtained from the total permeate pressure and the permeate composition. However, the partial vapor pressures of components i and j in the feed liquid are less accessible. In the past, such data for common, simple mixtures would have to be found in published tables or calculated from an appropriate equation of state. Now, commercial computer process simulation programs calculate partial pressures automatically for even complex mixtures with reasonable reliability. This makes determination of the feed liquid partial pressures a trivial exercise. 

Having said this, the bulk of the pervaporation literature continues to report membrane performance in terms of the total flux through the membrane and a separation factor, /3pervap, defined for a two-component fluid as the ratio of the two components on the permeate side of the membrane divided by the ratio of the two components on the feed side of the membrane. The term /3pervap can be written in several ways. 

Equation (9.11) identifies the three factors that determine the performance of a pervaporation system. The first factor, pevAp, is the vapor-liquid equilibrium, determined mainly by the feed liquid composition and temperature the second is the membrane selectivity, G-men, an intrinsic permeability property of the membrane material and the third includes the feed and permeate vapor pressures, reflecting the effect of operating parameters on membrane performance. This equation is, in fact, the pervaporation equivalent of Equation (8.19) that describes gas separation in Chapter 8. 

In a pressure-driven membrane process the molecules are generally rejected by the membrane and therefore their concentrations in the permeate are lower than those in the feed solution. However, an accumulation of excess particles can occur at the membrane surface with the creation of a boundary layer. This phenomenon, called concentration polarization, causes a different membrane performance. In particular, with low molecular weight solutes the observed rejection will be lower than the real retention or, sometimes, it could be negative. 

Data, particularly normalized data, is evaluated to determine the nature of the loss in membrane performance (see Chapter 11.3 for a complete discussion on data normalization). Normalized permeate flow, salt rejection, and differential pressure should be evaluated to determine trends in performance. 

Separation of liqui(J mixture Application of PV and VP General review, examples of polymers for membrane preparation, as well as performance parameters of pervaporation and vapor permeation membranes, are described [159]... 

The membrane performance was good, during almost 60-h operation and the permeate flux was stable after initial decline. The biggest flux decrease was observed when macromolecular sodium polyacrylate was introduced first after dosing 0.4 g/L of NaPAA, then after injection of the next portion (1 g/L NaPAA). In that time, permeate flux declined from 52 L/m h in the beginning (without the complexing agent), to 11 L/m h after injection of 1 g/L of the polymer. Further increase of polymer concentration did not result in the flux decline, as well as addition of CoCF suspension. 

Membrane performance characteristics in the hydraulic and diffusion limits are compared to each other in Fig. 9. Figure 9(a) illustrates that in the diffusion model considerable deviations from the purely ohmic performance of the saturated membrane arise already at small jv/Jj, well below the critical current density. This is in line with the comparison of the water-content profiles calculated in the diffusion model, Fig. 9(b), with those from the hydraulic permeation model, in Fig. 7. Indeed, membrane dehydration is much stronger in the diffusion model, affecting larger membrane domains at given values of jp/./j. Moreover, the profiles exhibit different curvature from those in Fig. 7. 

This notion is supported by a large number of independent experimental data, related to structure and mobility in these membranes. It implies furthermore a distinction of proton mobility in various water environments, strongly bound surface water and liquidlike bulk water, and the existence of water-filled pores as network forming elements. Appropriate theoretical treatment of such systems involves random network models of proton conductivity and concepts from percolation theory, and includes hydraulic permeation as a prevailing mechanism of water transport under operation conditions. On the basis of these concepts a consistent approach to membrane performance can be presented. 

In addition, it is not the average pore size which is the determining factor in membrane performance, but the smallest constriction in the porous medium. Indeed some characterisation techniques determine the dimension of the pore entrance rather than the pore size. Such techniques often provide better information about permeation related characteristics, provided that through pores are concerned. 

Membrane performance Is often measured by the ability of the membrane to prevent, regulate or facilitate permeation. The rate of permeation and the mechanism of transport depend upon the magnitude of the driving force, the size of the permeating molecule relative to the size of the available permanent or dynamic transport corridor and the chemical nature (dispersive, polar, Ionic, etc.) of both the permeant and the polymeric membrane material. 

The flux of 0.03 gfd for the homogeneous polyamide membrane was more than two orders of magnitude too low for commercial desalination. The flux was increased 175 fold with no decrease in salt rejection by casting the membrane with asynmetric morphology. Even higher fluxes, up to 3.5 times that observed for the asymmetric MPD-l/T (100-70/30) polyamide membrane, were obtained with asymmetric membranes cast from polyhydrazides and polyamide-hydrazides. Permeation properties for the three types of aromatic polyamides are shown in Table IX. The RO properties of this group of membranes illustrate the combined effects of Structure Levels I, II and III on membrane performance. 

Three basic quantities are defined to describe membrane performance. Flux is the permeate flow rate normalized to total membrane filter area. For protein recovery in the cell separation step, instantaneous protein transmission can be measured by determining enzyme concentration simultaneously on the retentate and permeate sides of the filter during cell concentration. Percent transmission is calculated as ... 

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