New approach of the fouling process modeling in tangential filtration on cake

International audienceThis work developed a new theoretical approach for modeling the membrane cross-flow filtration and described the importance of surface energy in the fouling process. In the case of zeta potential membranes, the cake formation results from surface phenomena caused by various interactions at the molecular and the macroscopic level, and is characterized by the surface energy resulting from the action of both gravitational and mechanical forces. The results of the experimental application of the new model revealed that the surface phenomena and the surface forces are the major factors in the fouling process. The new model had undergone various statistical tests to determine its performances and for its comparison with existing models used in wastewater or in drinking water treatment. The considered statistical parameters were the absolute relative error, squared correlation coefficient, the error probability of the experimental points, the distribution function and the correlation coefficient. In this study, two important parameters namely the fouling power Ψ and the overall surface energy γ have been developed; they constituted the contribution of this study in the understanding of the mechanism of membrane fouling. The obtained results showed the impact of the surface interactions, especially at particle wall of the filtering membrane. The level forming the deposit fouling demonstrated that the fouling process from zeta potential membrane is relatively intrinsic from the quantity of surface energy, the characteristic of membrane and the conditions of filtration. © 2017 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved