Abstract
Filtration of natural and colloidal matter is an essential process in today’s water treatment processes. The colloidal matter is retained with the help of micro- and nanoporous synthetic membranes. Colloids are retained in a “cake layer” – often coined fouling layer. Membrane fouling is the most substantial problem in membrane filtration: colloidal and natural matter build-up leads to an increasing resistance and thus decreasing water transport rate through the membrane. Theoretical models exist to describe macroscopically the hydrodynamic resistance of such transport and rejection phenomena; however, visualization of the various phenomena occurring during colloid retention is extremely demanding. Here we present a microfluidics based methodology to follow filter cake build up as well as transport phenomena occuring inside of the fouling layer. The microfluidic colloidal filtration methodology enables the study of complex colloidal jamming, crystallization and melting processes as well as translocation at the single particle level.
Highlights
Filtration of natural and colloidal matter is an essential process in today’s water treatment processes
The colloidal matter is retained with the help of micro- and nanoporous synthetic membranes
Membrane fouling is the most substantial problem in membrane filtration: colloidal and natural matter build-up leads to an increasing resistance and decreasing water transport rate through the membrane
Summary
John Linkhorst[1], Torsten Beckmann[1], Dennis Go2, Alexander J. We present a microfluidics based methodology to follow filter cake build up as well as transport phenomena occuring inside of the fouling layer. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can be applied to study fouling[9] These methods facilitate only monitoring of the macroscopic growth of the cake layer and the membrane fouling process and not the visualization of the intricate phenomena occurring at the microscale. Single particle interactions with defined pores can be studied in microfluidics; these systems do not represent real membrane or cake layer geometries sufficiently. The connection between these two regimes is missing, obviating true physical insight into membrane fouling processes. In combination these techniques facilitate the investigation of various fundamental processes, which we elaborate here one by one
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