Industrial dairy wastewater purification by shear-enhanced membrane filtration: The effects of vibration

Membrane fouling is a major challenge limiting the use of membrane applications. In this study high induced shear rates were utilized at the membrane surface in order to reduce the organic and inorganic scaling by using the torsional vibration of flat sheet membranes. The performances of a vibratory shear-enhanced processing (VSEP) system for the ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane filtration of industrial dairy wastewater were investigated. The vibration and non-vibration methods were compared with the same membrane and operational parameters during the purification of real dairy industrial process wastewater. In the initial experiments, short-term tests were carried out in which the effects of vibration amplitude, recirculation flow rate and transmembrane pressure were measured and compared. The permeate flux, turbidity, conductivity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction of dairy wastewater were investigated by using UF, NF and RO membranes with vibration and non-vibration methods. In the subsequent experiments, concentration tests were also carried out. Finally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that the vibration method gave a better performance, which can be attributed to the higher membrane shear rate, which reduces the concentration of solids at the membrane, and the transmission.