Flux decline in crossflow microfiltration and ultrafiltration: experimental verification of fouling dynamics

The theory of fouling dynamics in crossflow membrane filtration is compared with ultrafiltration experiments with suspensions of 0.12 mu m silica coll oids. It has been experimentally verified that colloidal fouling in crossfl ow filtration is a dynamics process from non-equilibrium to equilibrium and that the steady state flux is the limiting flux. With the cake concentrati on c(g) identified from an independent experiment and the specific cake res istance calculated by Carman-Kozeny equation, the time-dependent flux and t he time to reach steady state in the experiments of this study are correctl y predicted with the theory of fouling dynamics. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.