Investigation of membrane fouling

Fouling of ultrafiltration membranes in milk industries is mostly due to precipitation of microorganisms, proteins, fats and minerals on the membrane surfaces. Thus, chemical cleaning of the membranes is essential. In this paper, results obtained from investigations on a polysulfon ultrafiltration membrane fouled by precipitation of milk components have been presented. In this research the effect of different cleaning agents on the recovery of the fouled membrane has been studied. Results show that a combination of sodium dodecyl sulfate and sodium hydroxide can be used as a cleaning material to reach the optimum recovery of the polysulfon membranes used in milk concentration industries. Also a mixture of sodium hypocholorite and sodium hydroxide shows acceptable results, where washing with acidic material has no considerable performance.