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Estimating membrane performance

As a process engineer in charge of developing a membrane separation system for a, for example, fruit juice plant, one of the important considerations to make is how well the membrane performs during the process in order to achieve the greatest separation efficiency. This page will share with you some of the ways to go when estimating the performance of the membrane. There are many ways that can be use to do so and these include, rejection or retention factors, conversion percentage and molecular weight cut off (MWCO).

 

Fig 1. Retention and rejection factors for estimating membrane performance (from Singh & Heldman, 2008).

Molecular weight cut off (MWCO)

 

  • UF: 1000 – 300,000 DA

  • RO: 100 – 500 DA

  • NF: 300 – 1000 DA

UF = Ultrafiltration membrane

RO = Reverse osmosis membrane

NF = Nanofiltration membrane

 

(1 DA = 1 g/mol)

Conversion percentage, Z

mp = mass flux of product

mf = mass flux of feed

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