A comparative study between three of the physical antifouling techniques for oily wastewater filtration using ceramic membranes: Namely; the novel periodic transmembrane pressure technique, pulsatile flow, and backflushing

Abstract

In this study, we evaluate the performance of the newly developed periodic transmembrane pressure technique (PTMP) in relation to two conventional physical antifouling techniques, namely, backwashing and backpulsing in the context of the filtration of oily water systems using ceramic membranes. The results demonstrate that the novel PTMP established higher performance than the other two techniques. Values of the overall permeate volume, steady-state permeate flux, residual flux, and fouling reversibility using the PTMP were shown to be higher than those of the other two techniques. In addition, visual inspection of the internal surface of membrane channels post-filtration shows that the PTMP achieved a clean as-new surface compared to the other two techniques. Resistances-in-series model analysis was employed to inspect and analyze the development of fouling upon using the three techniques. PTMP presented a negligible internal resistance and a small cake layer resistance compared to backwashing, pulsatile flow, and regular crossflow filtration. The PTMP is therefore a promising physical antifouling method that can be implemented in an existing crossflow filtration system with basic modification, in addition to the ease of use and energy efficiency.