Laboratory equipment for testing of hollow-fibre membrane properties

Abstract

Water has a major role at present. Its usage is determined by its quality, which is supported by regulations in many countries. In real life, technology using membrane elements is widely used for water purification. Commonly, membrane modules in the form of hollow fibres are applied. There are modules made from different porous and polymeric materials on the market. Laboratory equipment was constructed to compare different commercially available membranes in this study. The equipment was designed for the testing of hollow-fibre membranes and for observing various parameters during the performance of volatile organic compound (toluene) separation. The device allows testing either parameters of individually selected hollowfibre membranes or parallel measurements of the commercially available module as a whole to compare with an individual fibre. The equipment was used for pilot testing in laboratory conditions. Efficiencies of toluene separation from water under various flow rates by using several commercially available membrane modules were observed. Experiments confirmed decreasing separation capability with increasing water flow rates. Choice of membrane material is very significant for further applications because the results showed that the separation efficiency varies with the use of different materials.