Rejection of salt mixtures from high saline by nanofiltration membranes

Habis Al-Zoubi; Waid Omar

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.26, No.3, 799-805, May, 2009

DOI10.1007/s11814-009-0133-7 Export Citation

Rejection of salt mixtures from high saline by nanofiltration membranes

Habis Al-Zoubi^†, and Waid Omar¹

Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Mining & Environmental Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Ma’an, Jordan, Korea
¹Department of Natural Resources and Chemical Engineering, Tafila Technical University, Tafila, Jordan, Korea

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Nanofiltration (NF) membranes have recently been employed as pretreatment unit operations in seawater desalination processes and as partial demineralization to seawater. The present paper investigates the performance of selected commercial NF membranes to reject salts of high concentrations at salinity levels representative of brackish and sea water. Two commercial nanofiltration membranes (NF90 and NF270) have been investigated in detail to study their performance in filtering aqueous solutions containing different salt mixtures in a cross-flow NF membrane process within the pressure range from 4 to 9 bar. Spiegler-Kedem model (SKM) was used to fit the experimental data of rejection with the permeate flux. The results showed that NF90 membrane was shown to have a distinct ability to reject both monovalent and divalent ions of all investigated mixtures with very reasonable values but with relatively low flux. This will make NF90 more suitable for the application in the pretreatment of desalination processes. On the other hand, NF270 can reject monovalent ions at relatively low values and divalent ions at reasonable values, but at very high permeate flux. The SKM model only fitted well the experimental data of divalent ions in salt mixture. Based on the evaluation of the overall performance of NF90 and NF270 membranes, their distinct ability to reject salts at high salinity from seawater is considered an advantage in the field of pretreatment of seawater feed to desalination units.

Keywords:Membrane;Nanofiltration;Salt Rejection;Pretreatment;Spiegler-Kedem Model

[References]

Kim S, Kim J, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(5), 747 (2006)
Hassan AM, Al-Sofi MAK, Al-Amoudi AS, Jamaluddin ATM, Farooque AM, Rowaili A, Dalvi AGI, Kither NM, Mustafa GM, Al-Tisan IAR, Desalination, 118(1-3), 35 (1998)
Kim S, Ozaki H, Kim J, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(1), 28 (2006)
Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Abu Arabi M, Desalination, 170(3), 281 (2004)
Al-Sofi MAK, Hassan AM, Mustafa GM, Dalvi AGI, Kither MNM, Desalination, 118(1-3), 123 (1998)
Pontie M, Diawara C, Rumeau M, Aureau D, Hemmery P, Desalination, 158(1-3), 277 (2003)
Pontie M, Lhassani A, Diawara CK, Elana A, Innocent C, Aureau D, Rumeau A, Croue JP, Buisson H, Hemery P, Desalination, 167(1-3), 347 (2004)
Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish N, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 184, 1295 (2005)
Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish N, Mohammad AW, Separation Science and Technology, 40, 1 (2005)
Al-Zoubi H, Hilal N, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 206(1-3), 42 (2007)
Hagmeyer G, Gimbel R, Desalination, 117(1-3), 247 (1998)
Sarkar P, Datta S, Bhattacharjee C, Bhattacharya PK, Gupta BB, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(4), 617 (2006)
Kedem O, Katchalsky A, Tans. Faraday Soc., 59, 1918 (1963)
Spiegler KS, Kedem O, Desalination, 1, 311 (1966)
Schaep J, Van der Bruggen B, Vandecasteele C, Wilms D, Sep. Purif. Technol., 14(1-3), 155 (1998)
Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 177(1-3), 187 (2005)
El-Dessouky H, Ettouney H, Fundametals of sea water desalination, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam (2002)
Miller JC, Miller JN, Statistics for analytical chemistry, 3rd Edition. Ellis Horwood PTR Prentice Hall, Chichester (1993)
Al-Zoubi H, Pretreatment in desalination: Prediction of nanofiltration: Membranes performance using atomic force microscopy and modeling, PhD thesis, the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK (2006)

[Referenced By]

[1] Kim S, Kim J, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(5), 747 (2006)

[2] Hassan AM, Al-Sofi MAK, Al-Amoudi AS, Jamaluddin ATM, Farooque AM, Rowaili A, Dalvi AGI, Kither NM, Mustafa GM, Al-Tisan IAR, Desalination, 118(1-3), 35 (1998)

[3] Kim S, Ozaki H, Kim J, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(1), 28 (2006)

[4] Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Abu Arabi M, Desalination, 170(3), 281 (2004)

[5] Al-Sofi MAK, Hassan AM, Mustafa GM, Dalvi AGI, Kither MNM, Desalination, 118(1-3), 123 (1998)

[6] Pontie M, Diawara C, Rumeau M, Aureau D, Hemmery P, Desalination, 158(1-3), 277 (2003)

[7] Pontie M, Lhassani A, Diawara CK, Elana A, Innocent C, Aureau D, Rumeau A, Croue JP, Buisson H, Hemery P, Desalination, 167(1-3), 347 (2004)

[8] Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish N, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 184, 1295 (2005)

[9] Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish N, Mohammad AW, Separation Science and Technology, 40, 1 (2005)

[10] Al-Zoubi H, Hilal N, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 206(1-3), 42 (2007)

[11] Hagmeyer G, Gimbel R, Desalination, 117(1-3), 247 (1998)

[12] Sarkar P, Datta S, Bhattacharjee C, Bhattacharya PK, Gupta BB, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 23(4), 617 (2006)

[13] Kedem O, Katchalsky A, Tans. Faraday Soc., 59, 1918 (1963)

[14] Spiegler KS, Kedem O, Desalination, 1, 311 (1966)

[15] Schaep J, Van der Bruggen B, Vandecasteele C, Wilms D, Sep. Purif. Technol., 14(1-3), 155 (1998)

[16] Hilal N, Al-Zoubi H, Darwish NA, Mohammad AW, Desalination, 177(1-3), 187 (2005)

[17] El-Dessouky H, Ettouney H, Fundametals of sea water desalination, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam (2002)

[18] Miller JC, Miller JN, Statistics for analytical chemistry, 3rd Edition. Ellis Horwood PTR Prentice Hall, Chichester (1993)

[19] Al-Zoubi H, Pretreatment in desalination: Prediction of nanofiltration: Membranes performance using atomic force microscopy and modeling, PhD thesis, the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK (2006)