Experimental study of a dynamic filtration system with overlapping ceramic membranes and non-permeating disks rotating at independent speeds

In a previous paper [Ding et al., J. Membr. Sci. 276 (2006) 232], we have investigated the performance in microfiltration of mineral suspensions of a novel filtration pilot consisting in overlapping ceramic membranes disks rotating at same speed on two parallel shafts. In this paper, we investigate a modification of this concept in which the ceramic disks of one shaft were replaced by non-permeating metal disks of same size rotating at a speed different from that of membranes. We also operated the pilot without disks on the 2nd shaft in order to eliminate membrane overlapping. When using metal disks with radial vanes, permeate fluxes were found to be 50–60% higher than those obtained in the same conditions with the previous design using only ceramic disks. By comparing permeate fluxes in different configurations, membranes on both shafts, membranes on the 1st shaft with and without metal disks on the 2nd shaft, we showed that, at a feed concentration of 200 g L−1, the effect on permeate flux J, of shear rate increment due to membrane overlapping, could be completely offset by the high concentration increase between two adjacent and overlapping membranes. Raising the ceramic disks rotation speed Nc had a larger effect on J than increasing the metal disks speed Nm. For Nc = 32.16 Hz (1930 rpm) and Nm = 2.4 Hz (144 rpm), J reached 1790 L h−1 m−2 at 310 kPa, versus 1100 L h−1 m−2 for Nc = 12.3 Hz (738 rpm) and Nm = 22.26 Hz (1336 rpm) (for the same total sum Nc + Nm). Measurements of electrical power consumed by friction on rotating disks showed that the energy spent per m3 of permeate was lowest when using metal disk with vanes rotating at low speed and ceramic disks rotating at high speed.