An empirical model for membrane flux prediction in ultrafiltration of surface water

Surface water was purified by ultrafiltration membrane to produce drinking water. The membrane flux decreases with increasing turbidity and there is a somehow linear relationship between membrane flux and the log of turbidity. Mathematical model was built to predict the membrane flux based on this. The parameters which concerned the model were raw water quality (turbidity), transmembrane pressure (ΔP) and temperature. The result showed that the model can well predict the membrane flux.

There is a straightforward relationship between permeate flux and log (turbidity) for surface water. An empirical model was constructed to predict the membrane flux for Songhuajiang river water: J ( ΔP ,Y , T ) = − 251 × ΔP ln Y exp ⎡0.0239 × ( 20 − T ) ⎤ ⎣ ⎦ (9) + 10.5 × ln Y + 1448 ΔP − 17.4 × exp ⎡0.0239 × ( 20 − T ) ⎤ ⎣ ⎦ Results showed that the model can satisfy the requirement basically.