Abstract
The flux during membrane filtration can be enhanced by the use of a two-phase gas–liquid flow. This has been shown to be an energy-efficient alternative to increasing the cross-flow velocity. In this work, air sparging was used to increase the flux during ultrafiltration of alkali-extracted wheat bran hemicelluloses. Batch filtration was performed in a pilot unit with a ceramic ultrafiltration membrane with a nominal cut-off of 10kDa. Parametric studies with and without air sparging were performed at temperatures of 30°C, 50°C and 80°C and cross-flow velocities of 1, 3, 5 and 7m/s. The limiting flux was not affected by air sparging at 30°C, while a slight increase was observed at 50°C and a considerable increase was obtained at 80°C. Air sparging reduced the energy demand per m3 permeate produced during dead-end batch ultrafiltration at 80°C and 1m/s from 0.96kWh/m3 to 0.51kWh/m3.
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