Bridging the gap between lab-scale and commercial dimensions of hollow fiber nanofiltration membranes

The development of nanofiltration membranes with hollow fiber geometry is a relatively young field research in membrane science only limited, but quickly growing, availability on commercial scale. These offer promising properties for application water treatment such as high fouling resistance and low cost compared to Reverse Osmosis membranes. Major differences are found dimension operating conditions used academia an industrial To allow adequate comparison prediction performance, the effect process performance needs be properly understood. A systematic experimental study MgSO4 retention by was performed investigate length operational performance. significant drop observed 1.5 m long fibers flux ranges 20 LMH when reducing crossflow velocity 0.1 m/s. Transport models were describe predict this behavior. We show that commonly mass transport under decrease retention. Using different theoretical feed phase dimensional resolution from 2D 1D 0D allows identification limitations applied analytical transfer correlations. accommodate discrepancy between results model predictions, correction factor derived using specifically account deviations these correlations at permeate recovery values. Our newly developed makes it possible accurately full scale solely based measured done small membranes, important precondition further dense processes.