Permeate flux decline during UF of oily wastewater: Experimental and modeling Original Research Article

Oily wastewaters in Tehran refinery has become a big issue of water and environment pollution to be solved urgently. The results of an experimental study on separation of oil from oily wastewaters are presented. A polyacrylonitrile (PAN, 20 kDa) membrane as the ultrafiltration (UF) membrane and an outlet wastewater of API unit of Tehran refinery were employed and the interaction effects of different operating parameters such as transmembrane pressure (TMP), cross-flow velocity (CFV), temperature and pH on permeate flux and fouling resistance were investigated. In this research, Taguchi method (L9 orthogonal array (OA)) was used initially to plan a minimum number of experiments.