Evaluation of Poly (Vinylidene Fluoride) Ultrafiltration Membrane Modules for Pretreatment of Reverse Osmosis Plants

Water treatment and reuse in oil and gas industry are essential issues. Water shortage problemshave become more severe and the need for compact and mobile water treatment installations is felt morein recent decades. In this regards, membrane processes have been properly and widely applied invarious sectors of water and wastewater treatment. Ultrafiltration (UF) as a major section, plays a veryimportant role in this field. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) UF membranes are considered as the bestoptions for pretreatment of Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants which serve as the main supply of boiler feedwater in oil refineries or petrochemical companies. In this study, Different types of spiral wound PVDFUF membrane modules of 100-200 KDa (MWCO) which were all fabricated at Research Institute ofPetroleum Industry (RIPI), Iran, were characterized and evaluated for their permeation and rejectionperformance. SEM analysis, pure water flux, solute rejection, flux recovery ratio and TSS removalefficiency tests were performed for modules. The results were compared with two commercial PVDFUF membrane modules, too.It was shown that the water permeation flux and MWCO of the fabricated modules are in acceptablepermeation range of industrial modules and have the potential of being used as pretreatment of ROplants.

Evaluation of Poly (Vinylidene Fluoride) Ultrafiltration Membrane Modules for Pretreatment of Reverse Osmosis Plants Keywords:

PVDF , UF membrane , Spiral-wound modules , wastewater treatment , RO pretreatment