Whey separation using TiO₂-modified ultrafiltration membrane

Nowadays, the membrane filtration technique is a commonly used method for the separation of whey. The most significant limitation of membrane applications is fouling, which causes flux decline. During this work, regenerated cellulose membranes covered by TiO2-nanoparticles were investigated and applied to the separation of whey solution. Experiments were carried out in a dead-end ultrafiltration cell, and the changes in filtration parameters and the photocatalytic effects of the UV irradiated TiO2 modified membrane surface on the membrane fouling were examined. Our results showed that the water flux decreased with increasing TiO2 layer thickness, but the retention of turbidity and of COD increased. After separation, the membrane surface was cleaned by UV irradiation by means of photocatalytic oxidation. It was found that the original flux was recoverable, while the retention of the membrane decreased after cleaning

The Influence of Temperature Conditions on Position Control of Fluidic Muscle

Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are of special importance in the field of pneumatic drives and in robotics. Different designs have been developed, but the McKibben muscle is the most popular and is made commercially available by different companies, e.g. Fluidic Muscle manufactured by Festo Company. There are a lot of advantages of PAMs like the high strength, good power/weight ratio, good power/volume ratio, low price, little maintenance needed, great compliance, compactness, flexibility, inherent safety and usage under rough environments. The objective of this research note is to determine the error of positioning with a Fluidic Muscle at cold and at normal operating temperature of the system with sliding mode control. The results of the experiments showed that the positioning error of the Fluidic Muscle under the experimental conditions was 0.01 mm

Modeling of membrane separation and applying combined operations at biosystems

The importance of the treatment of water and wastewater has been steadily increasing because of the ever greater demands to eliminate environmental pollution. Pressure-driven membrane separation processes, including ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), have been widely used in water and wastewater treatment and are applied on an industrial scale worldwide. The aim of our paper is to introduce the results of our research team on this field. The main research area within the membrane separation was the reduction of resistances. The effect of ozonation, vibration and application of dolly particles were examined in our scientific works