Reverse Osmosis and Ultrafiltration

A fuU listing of aU U.S. patents issued between Febmary 1970 through Febmary 1981 is given in Reference 26. Similar related material on membranes, ultrafiltration, and reverse osmosis can be found in References 46—49. 

Membranes used for the pressure-driven separation processes, microfiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, as well as those used for dialysis, are most commonly made of polymeric materials 11. Initially most such membranes were cellulosic in nature. These are now being replaced by polyamide, polysulphone, polycarbonate and a number of other advanced polymers. These synthetic polymers have improved chemical stability and better resistance to microbial degradation. Membranes have most commonly been produced by a form of phase inversion known as immersion precipitation. This process has four main steps (a) the polymer is dissolved in a solvent to 10-30 per cent by mass, (b) the resulting solution is cast on a suitable support as a film of thickness, approximately 100 11 m, (c) the film is quenched by immersion in a non-solvent bath, typically... 

Membrane equipment for industrial scale operation of microfiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis is supplied in the form of modules. The area of membrane contained in these basic modules is in the range 1-20 m2. The modules may be connected together in series or in parallel to form a plant of the required performance. The four most common types of membrane modules are tubular, flat sheet, spiral wound and hollow fibre, as shown in Figures 8.9-8.12. 

Porous filaments or membranes for micro- and ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, membranes for wastewater recovery. .. 

Mitrovic and Knezic (1979) also prepared ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membranes by this technique. Their membranes were etched in 5% oxalic acid. The membranes had pores of the order of 100 nm, but only about 1.5 nm in the residual barrier layer (layer AB in Figure 2.15). The pores in the barrier layer were unstable in water and the permeability decreased during the experiments. Complete dehydration of alumina or phase transformation to a-alumina was necessary to stabilize the pore structure. The resulting membranes were found unsuitable for reverse osmosis but suitable for ultrafiltration after removing the barrier layer. Beside reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration measurements, some gas permeability data have also been reported on this type of membranes (Itaya et al. 1984). The water flux through a 50/im thick membrane is about 0.2mL/cm -h with a N2 flow about 6cmVcm -min-bar. The gas transport through the membrane was due to Knudsen diffusion mechanism, which is inversely proportional to the square root of molecular mass. 

The considerations above have been utilized by various manufacturers in designing efficient ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis equipment. 

Fluidized beds have also been used to promote mass-transfer in both ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Smolders et al (22) ran 18mm i.d. UF tubes and 12mm i.d. RO tubes with and without fluidized beds (Ballotinl glass spheres). ... 

Koyuncu et al. [56] presented pilot-scale studies on the treatment of pulp and paper mill effluents using two-stage membrane filtrations, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis [56]. The combination of UF and RO resulted in very high removals of COD, color, and conductivity from the effluents. At the end of a single pass with seawater membrane, the initial COD, color and conductivity values were reduced to 10-20 mg/L, 0-100 PCCU (platinum cobalt color units) and 200-300 ps/cm, respectively. Nearly complete color removals were achieved in the RO experiments with seawater membranes. 

Table 11 Characteristics of Do Wastewater Subjected to Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis...

Sierka, R.A. Cooper, S.P. Pagoria, P.S. Ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis treatment of an acid stage wastewater. Water Sci. Technol. 1997, 35 (2-5), 155-161. 

In ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, in which solutions are concentrated by allowing the solvent to permeate a semi-permeable membrane, the permeate flux (i.e. the flow of permeate or solvent per unit time, per unit membrane area) declines continuously during operation, although not at a constant rate. Probably the most important contribution to flux decline is the formation of a concentration polarisation layer. As solvent passes through the membrane, the solute molecules which are unable to pass through become concentrated next to the membrane surface. Consequently, the efficiency of separafion decreases as fhis layer of concentrated solution accumulates. The layer is established within the first few seconds of operation and is an inevitable consequence of the separation of solvent and solute. 

The membrane processes of cross-flow microfiltration, ultrafiltration, and reverse osmosis offer excellent potential for continuous removal of these contaminants. The selection of the optimum process is a function of the form of the contaminants present as well as several other factors. 

Because the application of NMR spectroscopy to environmental samples is relatively new, we focused our studies on the identification and characterization of DOP by 31P FT-NMR spectroscopy. Ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis concentration techniques were employed to increase the dissolved organic phosphorus concentrations to the detection level of 31P FT-NMR techniques (approximately 10-20 mg of P/L). With these concentration methods a DOP concentration factor of up to 2000 is obtainable. This chapter reports the use of 31P FT-NMR spectroscopy in the analysis of DOP. In... 

Figure 1. Ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis concentration system.

Because NMR spectroscopy is a nuclei-specific technique and has the ability to distinguish between similar compounds, it is an excellent method for identifying similar species in complex matrices. Thus, 31P FT-NMR spectroscopy is ideal for the identification and characterization of the hydrosphere DOP. Even so, NMR spectroscopy is fairly insensitive and requires high sample concentrations. Low DOP concentrations are increased to 31P FT-NMR detection limits by using ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membranes. Not only is the DOP concentrated, but it is fractionated according to its molecular size. Compared to other concentration and molecular size fractionation techniques for DOP, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis are relatively rapid and easy. 

When pressurized liquid is used lo separate micrometer-size particles from fluids, the process is called microfiltration. Generally particle sizes are front 0.02 to 10 pm. Thus compared lo ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, fluxes and pore sizes are large, osmotic pressure low. and pressures moderate. Two types of niicrofiltration processes exist, crossflow and deadend. Commercially, the former is growing at Ihe expense of the latter. 

We can use the same filtration principle for the separation of small particles down to small size of the molecular level by using polymeric membranes. Depending upon the size range of the particles separated, membrane separation processes can be classified into three categories microfiltration, ultrafiltration, and reverse osmosis, the major differences of which are summarized in Table 10.2. 

The second whey separation process uses both ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis to obtain useful protein from the whey produced in the traditional cheese manufacturing process. A flow schematic of a combined ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis process is shown in Figure 6.23. The goal is to separate the whey into three streams, the most valuable of which is the concentrated protein fraction stripped of salts and lactose. Because raw whey has a high lactose concentration, before the whey protein can be used as a concentrate, the protein concentration must be increased to at least 60-70% on a dry basis and the lactose content... 

Microfiltration cross-flow systems are often operated at a constant applied transmembrane pressure in the same way as the reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration systems described in Chapters 5 and 6. However, microfiltration membranes tend to foul and lose flux much more quickly than ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membranes. The rapid decline in flux makes it difficult to control system operation. For this reason, microfiltration systems are often operated as constant flux systems, and the transmembrane pressure across the membrane is slowly increased to maintain the flow as the membrane fouls. Most commonly the feed pressure is fixed at some high value and the permeate pressure... 

Micro-ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis are mature technologies for separations based on molecular exclusion and solution-diffusion mechanisms, respectively. Cleaning and maintenance procedures able to control fouling to an acceptable extent have made these processes commercially suitable. 

Three different membrane processes, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and electrodialysis are receiving increased interest in pollution-control applications as end-of-pipe treatment and for inplant recovery systems. There is no sharp distinction between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. In the former, the separation is based primarily on the size of the solute molecule which, depending upon the particular membrane porosity, can range from about 2 to 10,000 millimicrons. In the reverse-osmosis process, the size of the solute molecule is not the sole basis for the degree of removal, since other characteristics of the... 

Solute recovery. So far we have discussed the waste management of a solute in a solvent. Now we are going to discuss solute recovery for reuse. There are different methods of solute recovery, for example, precipitation, ion exchange, ultrafiltration, and reverse osmosis. 

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