Analysis of deposition mechanism during ultrafiltration of glycerin-rich solutions

Clarification of glycerin-rich solution is one of the potential applications of membrane within the oleochemical industry. However, one of the barriers in successfully utilizing the use of membranes such as ultrafiltration (UF) has been due to the fouling. In this work, flux decline during ultrafiltration of the glycerin-rich solutions was studied by using commercialized polymeric polyethersulphone (PES) membrane. Influence of fatty acids as foulants model (palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid), pH of feed solution (3–10) and molecular weight cut-off (5 kDa, 20 kDa and 25 kDa) were analyzed. All the experiments were performed at constant pressure (2 bar) and temperature (40 °C). The Hermia's model was used to analyze the fouling mechanism during the flux decline which involve cake layer model due to adsorption of solute as well as pore blocking model. All the different types of flux decline kinetics were found to occur during the permeation of glycerin-rich solutions. However, the contribution of resistance due to cake layer formation was small for all the conditions studied. The fouling mechanisms were found to depend on the hydrophobicity of the PES membrane itself as well as the nature of foulants used in the study.