ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Comparison of ceramic capillary membrane and ceramic tubular membrane with inserted static mixer

Igor Gaspar, Andras Koris, Zsolt Bertalan, and Gyula Vatai

Department of Food Engineering, Corvinus University of Budapest, Menesi st. 44, 1118 Budapest, Hungary

E-mail: igor.gaspar@uni-corvinus.hu

Abstract: Oily wastewaters are produced in large amounts in many fields of food, mechanical, and other types of industry. In order to protect the environment, wastewaters must not be discharged directly into sewers. First, they must be cleaned at least down to 50 mg L⁻¹ of oil content (according to Hungarian standard). In previous research, the authors found that oil-in-water emulsions can be separated with filtration using ceramic ultrafiltration tubular membranes. The relatively high price of ceramic membranes can be compensated by the fact that this separation process can be significantly intensified by static mixers inside the tubular membranes. New generations of ceramic membranes are the ceramic capillary membranes. These two different types of membranes and their effects on permeate flux, oil retention and specific energy consumption were compared in this work. The results, obtained with a stable oil-in-water emulsion as feed, showed that the use of novel ceramic capillary membranes at optimal operating cross-flow rate and transmembrane pressure is reasonable. The results have also shown the advantage of static mixing in the lumen side of the membrane tube providing a wider range of satisfactory separation level and increased permeate flux.

Keywords: membrane filtration – ceramic membranes – capillary membranes – tubular membrane – static mixer – oil-in-water emulsion

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.2478/s11696-011-0045-y

Chemical Papers 65 (5) 596–602 (2011)