Membrane Fouling in Ultrafiltration of Hydrophobic Nonionic Surfactant

• Published in: JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING OF JAPAN Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 13 - 18
• Main Authors: Yamagiwa, Kazuaki, Kobayashi, Hiroe, Ohkawa, Akira, Onodera, Masayuki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan 1993; Society of Chemical Engineers; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Antifoam; Applied sciences; Biochemical Engineering; Chemical engineering; Crossflow Filtration; Exact sciences and technology; Fouling; Membrane Separation; Membrane separation (reverse osmosis, dialysis...); Nonionic Surfactant; Ultrafiltration; Membrane separation; Wettability; Fouling; Sulfone polymer; Ultrafiltration; Medium effect; Non ionic surfactant; Hydrophobic compound; Olefin polymer; Experimental study; Foam inhibitor
• ISSN: 0021-9592; 1881-1299
• DOI: 10.1252/jcej.26.13

Membrane fouling in ultrafiltration of hydrophobic nonionic surfactant was investigated, using hydrophilic polyolefin membrane and hydrophobic polysulfone membrane. The polyolefin membrane was hardly fouled by the surfactant. The ultrafiltration flux of the polysulfone membrane decreased drastically at temperatures above the cloud point of the surfactant. Membrane fouling by the surfactant was evaluated in terms of amount of surfactant deposition and wettability of membrane with the surfactant. The ultrafiltration flux was found to be controlled mainly by the initial deposition pattern of the surfactant. It was concluded that antifoam fouling was caused by hydrophobic interaction between the membrane and the surfactant.