ON THE BEHAVIOR OF MICELLAR SOLUTIONS IN TANGENTIAL ULTRAFILTRATION USING MINERAL MEMBRANES

Tangential ultrafiltration associated with the technology of mineral m embrane is expected to offer several advantages compared to stirred ce ll ultrafiltration (often used at the laboratory level): (i) easier op erating and cleaning procedures; (ii) better resistance to corrosion; (iii) reduced concentration polarization effects. The behavior of surf actant micelles, which can be used as the extracting phase in such pro cesses, has been given little attention so far. The present work was a imed at investigating the behavior of different kinds of surfactants f rom the viewpoints of the permeate flux and of the amount of surfactan t passing through the membrane. We have used two types of zirconium-ti tanium oxide membranes with molecular weight cutoff of 10,000 or 15,00 0 Da. The influence of parameters such as applied pressure, retentate flow rate, added salt, and value of pH was taken into consideration. T he results obtained with cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC, cationic), sod ium dodecyl sulfate (SDS, anionic), and polyethylene glycol tert-octyl phenyl ether (Triton X-100, nonionic) are discussed in terms of their possible interactions with (or adsorption onto) the membranes and thei r supporting material. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.