Fouling behaviour during ultrafiltration of skim latex / Ho Kar Wei
Natural field latex with about 30% dry rubber content (DRC) needs to be further concentrated to about 60% DRC for further downstream processing into a variety of products. A large volume of skim latex (consists of 6-8% DRC) is produced as byproduct during centrifugation of natural field latex. Me...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Published: |
2013
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| Online Access: | http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/8613/6/HO_KAR_WEI_%2D_Fouling_Behavior_during_ultrafiltration_of_skim_latex.pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/8613/ |
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| Institution: | Universiti Malaya |
| Summary: | Natural field latex with about 30% dry rubber content (DRC) needs to be further
concentrated to about 60% DRC for further downstream processing into a variety of
products. A large volume of skim latex (consists of 6-8% DRC) is produced as byproduct
during centrifugation of natural field latex. Membrane separation process can be
used to recover the skim rubber particles as well as the by-product serum from the skim
latex stream leading to zero discharge. Current practice requires a wastewater treatment
plant to treat the waste to meet the legal requirement before discharging to the
environment. As such a study has been initiated to gain an understanding of the fouling
behavior of skim latex in terms of permeate flux and fouling resistances during the
ultrafiltration of skim latex in order to increase membrane life as well as optimizing
cleaning procedure. A bench scale crossflow ultrafiltration unit using single channel
tubular ceramic membrane with pore size 0.05μm was used in this study. The effect of
operating conditions, i.e. crossflow velocity (1.3 cm/s to 4.6 cm/s) and transmembrane
pressure (0.3 bar to 1.0 bar) were investigated. The overall filtration performance
showed a similar trend, i.e. initial permeates fluxes start up high and then decreases
rapidly. Finally, permeate flux attained pseudo steady state where permeate flux was
almost constant at this stage. At crossflow velocity 4.6cm/s, initial permeate flux and
permeate flux at pseudo steady state decreased with the increase in transmembrane
pressure. At crossflow velocity 1.3 cm/s, permeate flux at pseudo steady state is reduced
by about 38% as transmembrane pressure increased from 0.6 bar to 1.0 bar. However,
permeate flux at pseudo steady state is increased drastically (263%) as transmembrane
pressure increased further to 1.3 bar. This behavior occurred due to the change in the
microstructure of fouled membrane as shown in scanning electron microscope images.
Keywords: Ultrafiltration; skim latex; ceramic membrane; fouling |
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