Verification of a Combined Fouling Model to Predict Flux Decline during Ultrafiltration of Organic Solutes

Studies were conducted to investigate the blocking mechanism and flux decline behavior while treating organic solutes contained in glycerin-water solutions (triglycerides, TG and fatty acid, FA). Two ultrafiltration membranes were tested, polyethersulphone (PES 25 kDa) and polyvinylidenfluoride (PVDF 30 kDa) membranes. Influence of TG and its combination (TG-FA mixtures) as foulant models, pH of feed solutions (3–10) and membrane surface chemistry were investigated. Combined blocking model was applied and the fitting were discriminate that the flux decline of PES membrane was dominated by pore blockage at the early stage and later by cake resistance during the entire filtration time. However, for PVDF membrane, cake formation mechanism was acknowledged as the major contributor to the fouling mechanism for all the parameters tested. On the other hand, the model predicts there are two stages of filtration appeared to occur, involving pore blockage at the early stage followed by cake formation.