Experimental investigation of cross-flow regime in novel high throughput set-up for liquid separations

Abstract

High throughput (HT) screening techniques for pressure-driven membrane processes allow simultaneous screening of multiple membrane samples under similar conditions, and are thus labour-, time- and consumables efficient. HT-modules have so far all been set-up in dead-end configuration. A new filtration set-up for cross-flow filtration has now been designed, allowing to simultaneously perform 16 pressure-driven separations with a membrane surface of 15 cm² each. The potential of the developed equipment and of the HT-screening concept in general was validated by demonstrating the reliability and reproducibility of the measurement of membrane performances, and by comparing flow simulations and experimental data. These data were obtained with 2 types of commercially available membrane: a nanofiltration membrane (NF 270, DowDuPont, USA) and a reverse osmosis membrane 73AC-UTC (Toray Industries Inc., Japan). Additionally, the flow-regime inside the cross-flow channel was studied by varying the hydrodynamic parameters and by applying feed spacers. The reproducibility of the data proved that this HT-approach can be a useful tool to rapidly screen a large array of operational parameters in membrane processes.