A parametric study of fouling behavior for whey ultrafiltration

Whey is the main by-product of the dairy industry obtained from cheese production. It contains a high concentration of valuable components, such as protein and lactose. Ultrafiltration membrane (UF) is used in the dairy industry to fractionate proteins from whey. Fouling of Uf membrane is a major factor that can limit the membrane flux. In this study, polysulfone (PSf) membranes with 0.1, 0.5 and 1 wt.% of LiCl were prepared at the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a pore former and dimethylformamide (DMF) as a solvent via phase inversion technique by immersion precipitation method. The results showed that the porosity of membranes was significantly enhanced after modification. Further, A decrement in the mean pore of the membranes was observed by increasing LiCl to 1 wt.%. In order to evaluation of membrane fouling, the experimental data well discussed by pore blockage and cake filtration model. The performance based tests were shown that the membranes modified with LiCl have higher pure water and whey flux than neat membrane. Comparison the modified and neat membrane indicated that the pore blockage parameter (α) of membrane was decreased after modification with LiCl

Keywords:

whey , Lithium chloride (LiCl) , flux , fouling , pore blockage