A PREDICTING MODEL OF THE LIMITING FLUX FOR THE CHARGED SOLUTE IN ULTRAFILTRATION PROCESS

In the process of ultrafiltration , the occurrence of the limiting flux is elucidated with the formation of a cake(gel) layer on the membrane surface. Before cake formation, the pressure drop on the concentration polarization layer, as well as the permeate flux, increases with the applied pressure. The pressure drop on the concentration polarization layer, however, will no longer change with the applied pressure after the formation of the cake layer. The limiting flux will be obtained if the hydrodynamic conditions in the filtration channel are not affected by the cake layer. A mathematics model for predicting the limiting flux for the charged solute in ultrafiltration is developed. In this model, a repulsive electric force is taken into account in addition to convection and diffusion when the solute is carrying the same charge as the membrane material. A procedure to correlate the model with experimental ultrafiltration data is also present. The results show that a model in this paper is developed on a more realistic perception of the ultrafiltration system and the predicting data agrees well with experimental data.