Ultrafiltration membrane fouling characterization by multi-scale methodology

Morgane Le Hir (1) , Yvan Wyart (1) , Gaelle Georges (2) , Laure Siozade (2) , Michelle Sergent (3) , Philippe Moulin (1)

1 M2P2 - Laboratoire de Mécanique, Modélisation et Procédés Propres
2 DiMABio - DiMABio
3 LISA - Laboratoire d'Instrumentation et Sciences Analytiques

Membrane characterization by tracer retention is widely used to determine the retention potential and integrity of membranes by quantification of tracers passed through this one. The use of fluorescent tracers makes this retention quantification quick and reliable. Moreover, additional information like the location of retained tracers (Wu et al. 2014; Marroquin et al. 2014) and the composition of membrane fouling, with the use of complementary techniques, can be obtained, allowing to characterize membrane morphology and fouling. This study presents a multiscale characterization methodology to clearly determine the retention potential of ultrafiltration membrane regarding fluorescent nanoparticles (NPs) with calibrated size. Location of each NPs size in or/and on the membrane after filtration run allows to identify with precision the penetration profiles of NPs in membrane structure (skin and support) and to determine fouling mechanism(s) which can be correlated with macroscopic flux data observed during the filtration.

Keywords: Characterization; multi-scale; fouling; nanoparticles; fluorescence

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Chemical and Process Engineering

Morgane Le Hir, Yvan Wyart, Gaelle Georges, Laure Siozade, Michelle Sergent, et al.. Ultrafiltration membrane fouling characterization by multi-scale methodology. Euromembrane 2018, Jul 2018, Valence, Spain. ⟨hal-02116773⟩