Abstract
Mesh filters, which are characterized by low filtration resistance and low costs, are an attractive alternative to conventional microfiltration or ultrafiltration membranes for membrane bioreactor (MBR) operation. However, because of their unique filtration behaviors, effective methods are still lacking to evaluate the filtration resistance of such materials. In this work, a novel dead-end filtration test method was developed to rapidly and quantitatively measure the filtration resistance of nylon mesh. To simplify and accelerate the test process, uniform design technique in combination with statistical analysis techniques were used for optimization of the operating conditions, including stirring rate, trans-membrane pressure and sludge concentration. The results demonstrate that dead-end filtration method enables a reliable measurement of the filtration resistance and its distributions within only 23 min. In addition, the uniform design technique here was proven to be a useful tool to facilitate the method development and process optimization. The results of this work offers a foundation for in-depth investigation into mesh filter materials, and may hopefully be further extended to other aspects of coarse filter-based MBR investigations.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 107-111 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Separation and Purification Technology |
| Volume | 89 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 22 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors wish to thank the NSFC ( 51008290 ), the JSNSF ( BK2010256 ) and the Open Project from the State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology ( QAK201015 ) for the partial support of this study.
Keywords
- Dead-end filtration
- Filtration resistance
- Membrane bioreactor (MBR)
- Nylon mesh
- Uniform design