Hollow Fibers Filtration and Cleaning Processes Under Ultrasound and Gas Bubbling Combination

Abstract

AbstractFouling is one of the main obstacles to filtration process. In this study, the effects of gas bubbling by carbonated feed, gas bubbling by direct injection of CO2 (GB‐DI‐CO2) and N2 (GB‐DI‐N2) and ultrasound (US) were evaluated on flux enhancement during milk solution ultrafiltration and flux recovery during cleaning process of fouled hollow fibers membrane module. Results showed that the US and gas bubbling (GB) treatments significantly enhanced the performance of both ultrafiltration and cleaning processes, however, the effect of GB‐DI‐CO2 was not considerable. The best results were achieved when the GB‐DI‐N2 treatment was applied with US treatment in filtration and cleaning process, under this treatment, the permeation flux was remarkably enhanced up to 288.57% during ultrafiltration as well as the fouling percentage was reduced to 15.55% after cleaning the fouled membrane. Furthermore, the US was more effective than the GB during cleaning process.Practical ApplicationsFiltration process is faced to flux decline as a result of fouling. The ultrasound at low frequency and liquid–gas two phase flow can affect the concentration polarization and cake layer significantly. The combination of these techniques can be used as an effective methods to handle the fouling and flux decline. Also artificial neural networks model is able to predict the flux permeation of hollow‐fibers filtration under ultrasound and gas bubbling combination as a complex condition practically.