Clarification of factors that affect the flux performance of hollow fiber membranes during ultrafiltration using design of experiments

Abstract

In this paper, the separation of humic substances from oily wastewater was investigated using Hollow Fiber membranes. Consideration was given to the increse of membrane permeability or flux of the Ultrafiltration process. Specifically, several factors which were temperature, pressure, time, pH and surface area of membrane, were studied. The Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology was used to investigate the effect of the factors. From the analysis of variance (ANOVA), it was determined that the pH and temperature of feed solution, time of separation process and transmembrane pressure are significant. The results of this study help to increase the permeability of membranes, thus contributing to a more sustainable filtration system.