Elaboration of different pore blocking model for phenol removal using disk shaped ceramic membrane

Abstract

Membrane fouling is mainly associated with the deposition of solute molecules on the membrane surface. The performance of a given membrane is found to be degraded due to membrane fouling and hence it results into a significant decline in the permeate flux. Therefore it is very necessary to interpret the fouling mechanism in order to predict the profile of permeate flux. The present study illustrates the mechanism of membrane fouling through describing four pore blocking models such as complete pore blocking, standard pore blocking, intemediate pore blocking and cake filtration. The model parameters were also evaluated at varying trans-membrane pressures ranging from 196 to 392 kPa. The accuracy of the fitted model was further judged in terms of higher value of regression coefficient (R 2 ) and here also it is confirmed from Table 1 that cake filtration model exhibits higher values of R 2 (≈ 0.98). The degree of membrane fouling was indicated by model parameter k. The values of permeate fluxes calculated from different models are found to be less than the experimental values of the permeate flux indicating the under prediction of flux profile.