Study of modelling transmembrane pressure and gel resistance in ultrafiltration of oily emulsion Original Research Article

This article deals with water removal from oil-in-water emulsion by an ultrafiltration membrane at different transmembrane pressures. The membrane intrinsic resistance and gel resistance are analyzed and determined based on the resistance-in-series theory. The experimental results show that the effect of pressure on the permeate flux depends greatly on variations of the membrane properties, feed emulsion concentration and feed emulsion temperature. At lower emulsion concentration the flux increases with an increase in pressure. At higher emulsion concentration the concentration polarization becomes very serious. The flux is slightly influenced by pressure as the operating pressure is over a critical value. The COD values and oil concentrations in the permeate were reduced greatly when the transmembrane pressure was not over the critical pressure, however, on the contrary to the pressure is over the critical pressure. In addition, the model describing the relation of gel resistance and pressure is presented and analyzed by the experimental data. The results show that this model has a good agreement with calculated values.