Ultrafiltration of Lignin from Black Liquor: Modelling Decline in Flux

摘要

Fundamental studies on membrane fouling caused by organic matter during ultrafiltration have been carried out widely by using the stirred dead-end filtration setup. In this study, black liquor ultrafiltration experiments have been carried out using a hydrophilic polyethersulfone membrane with a cut-off size of 10kDa in a stirred batch cell over a wide range of operating conditions. The effect of operating conditions (pressure, feed concentration and stirring rate) on transient flux profiles was studied in order to elucidate the fouling mechanism involved. Results indicated that the operating conditions have a significant effect on the flux decline behaviour. The solute mass balance for a stirred cell and the intermediate blocking model were applied to model the flux decline experimental data. The simulation results were compared to the experimental results and they were found to be in good agreement predominantly for filtration time that was = 20 minutes.