Validation and application of a membrane filtration evaluation protocol for oil-water separation

Membrane filtration processes like microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) are proven to be effective in industrial wastewater treatment, including oil-water separation, as they generate suitable quality permeate for water reuse applications. Various research efforts have been conducted areas of developing and/or modifying commercial MF/UF membrane materials through synthesizing new advanced polymers that promise improvement separation performance. Although multiple testing procedures were developed, there is still a gap literature on having comprehensive protocol assesses the performance membranes terms flux, rejection, fouling, cleanability. This paper delivers robust bench scale procedure incorporating experiences lessons learned from literature. The evaluation includes three main steps: initial characterization, operating performance, cleaning recovery. was designed mimic conditions by using representative synthetic produced solution consecutives cycles followed chemical cleaning. initially validated different pore sizes/MWCOs chemistries obtained various manufacturers then applied evaluate emerging materials. found reliable evaluating trends comparing membranes. developed proposed researchers assess compared relevant products.