Experimental and modeling study of MEUF removal of naphthenic acids

Abstract

This work explores the performance of ceramic ultrafiltration membranes when coupled with micellar enhanced treatment of synthetically produced water containing naphthenic acids. Polymeric PAN membranes, reported in our earlier studies, have displayed enhanced performance in response to a synergy between the CPC surfactant and the naphthenic acid contaminants. However, ceramic membranes are more appealing to industry and offer stable performance at high temperatures and resilience towards the corrosive nature of naphthenic acids. In addition, this work includes model fit for the experimental results obtained from both polymeric and ceramic membranes. The model draws its strength from the fact that, with only one fitted parameter, it successfully describes permeate flux for different types of membranes with varying pore sizes when treating different feeds with varying compositions.