A Review on Modeling of Pore-Blocking Behaviors of Membranes During Pressurized Membrane Filtration

Abstract

Pore blocking is one of the critical factors governing the overall performance of membrane filtration systems. Pore blockage leads to a large resistance to filtration, giving rise to a sharp decline in the filtrate flux rate under constant pressure conditions and a severe increase in the pressure for operation under constant flux conditions during membrane filtration. In membrane filtration work, blocking filtration laws are widely used to interpret the membrane fouling in membrane filtration. This article presents a systematic review on the theoretical developments of mechanistic models related to the blocking filtration laws for describing the membrane fouling in membrane filtration. Equations for constant pressure and constant flux separations in the interstices of a membrane and on the surface are reported for the filtrate flow of Newtonian and power-law non-Newtonian fluids. The blocking filtration laws are useful also in the evaluation of the reduced pore size, maximum filtrate volume, and fouling potential. Moreover, the combined models are reviewed for a more complete, rigorous description of complicated behaviors of membrane fouling in which more than one mechanism operating successively or simultaneously is controlled.

Keywords:

• Blocking filtration
• Cake filtration
• Fouling
• Membrane filtration
• Pore blocking

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work has been partially supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, and from The Ministry of the Environment, Japan. The authors wish to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the financial support leading to the publication of this article.