KAGAKU KOGAKU RONBUNSHU, Vol.27, No.3, 379-385, 2001
Influence of membrane vibration on separation characteristics
Membrane separation technology, one of the most important industrial separation technologies, has been applied to various industrial fields. One of the serious problems in the membrane separation is fouling due to contamination of the membrane, and cross-flow system commonly used does not generate sufficient shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface to prevent the fouling. Therefore, rotating membrane and vibrating membrane system have been proposed and tested. Of these, vibrating membrane system effectively provides the biggest shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface, but its performance has not been explicitly shown in previous studies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the membrane vibration on separation characteristics. The permeate flux for a latex solution through the membrane was measured under several vibrating conditions and the effects of the amplitude and frequency of vibration on the permeate flux were investigated. The results show that the permeate flux increases with the shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface and the effect of frequency on the permeate flux is more significant than that of the amplitude.