Influence of membrane vibration on separation characteristics

Membrane separation technology, one of the most important industrial separa tion technologies, has been applied to various industrial fields. One of th e serious problems in the membrane separation is fouling due to contaminati on of the membrane, and cross-flow system commonly used does not generate s ufficient shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface to prevent the fouling. Therefore, rotating membrane and vibrating membrane system have be en proposed and tested. Of these, vibrating membrane system effectively pro vides the biggest shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface, but it s performance has not been explicitly shown in previous studies. The purpos e of this study is to investigate the effects of the membrane vibration on separation characteristics. The permeate flux for a latex solution through the membrane was measured under several vibrating conditions and the effect s of the amplitude and frequency of vibration on the permeate flux were inv estigated. The results show that the permeate flux increases with the shear rate in the fluid near the membrane surface and the effect of frequency on the permeate flux is more significant than that of the amplitude.