OPTIMIZATION OF THE ULTRAFILTRATION OF LATEX WASTEWATERS

The treatment of spent latex wastewaters by ultrafiltration is connect ed not only with pollution control but also with the recovery of valua ble latex by-products. It was the aim of these investigations to deter mine the suitability of tubular polyacrylonitrile and polysulfone memb ranes for the ultrafiltration of latex wastewaters. Experiments were c arried out in batch mode at a constant concentration and also in the c oncentration mode. The efficiency of the process was determined by mea suring the flux rate and retention coefficients of total solids and to tal organic carbon. Ultrafiltration was carried out at a temperature o f 298 K and in a pressure range of 0.05-0.35 MPa, cross-flow velocity range of 1-3.5 m/s and concentration range of 1-13%. The obtained resu lts have been utilized to modelling mathematically the ultrafiltration of latex wastewaters. The constants of the general dimensional mass t ransfer correlation as well as the dependence of the permeate flux rat e on the ultrafiltration process parameters (pressure, cross-flow velo city) and the concentration of wastewaters, have been determined.