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Development of Chemically & Thermally Resistant Nanofiltration Membranes

Obiettivo


At the end of the project two new nanofiltration membranes were prepared in pilot scale. One system is especially developed for the seperation of oil/solvent mixtures (Torlon(REG) support membrane) while the other system is desingned for acqueous systems (PAN support membrane). Different types of coating have been carried out and the resulting membranes were characterised for their chemical and thermal stability as well as for their nanofiltration properties. In all cases the membranes were characterised for their chemical and thermal stability as well as for their nonofiltration properties. In all cases the membranes fulfil the properties required in the proposal.

The mechanical stability tests showed that the membrane top-layer was vulnerable to puncture and abrasion by metal and other hard surfaces but sufficiently stabel to contacts with polymers. Construction of the spiral wound elements later in the project confirmed these results by showing that no extra precautions, besides the normal, need be taken to prevent mechanical damage. In case of the oil/solvent seperation new chemical stable spiral wound modules were fabricated too. They have been used with the new membranes for evaluation studied and economic calculations.

Objectives and content

The EC market for ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis could grow significantly, if one shortcoming of the current membranes could be overcome. This is the lack of stability against many chemicals (e.g. organic solvents), particularly at elevated temperatures. The few chemically and thermally resistant membrane types which are on the market are either too expensive for most applications (ceramic membranes) or their molecular cutoff is too high for many applications. Proposed is to develop low cost solvent and temperature resistant membranes for nanofiltration with molecular cut-offs between 300 and 1000 Dalton. The module costs should not exceed 350 ECU per m2 for the aqueous and 1000 ECU per m2 for the non-aqueous applications. These membranes will be applied (a.) for the treatment of industrial waste and process water streams, which either contain high concentration of organic solvents or require higher temperature or extreme pH resistance and (b.) for non-aqueous systems (e.g. edible oil processing).

Based on the experience in fabrication of ultrafiltration membranes from high performance polyaramide polymers these membranes will be used as a support for novel selective nanofiltration top-layers. Also new polymers which have never been proposed for NF-membrane formation will be applied for membrane development and production (e.g. polyamide imides, poly(amide-ether) copolymers). After laboratory development the membranes will be produced on industrial scale machines and fabricated into solvent and temperature resistant modules. In the last stage of the project long-term tests of full-sized membrane modules will be performed at end-users sites (aqueous and non-aqueous applications). The commercial relevance can be assessed by an envisioned treatment of several million tons of liquid process streams,by this technology in the EU. It is anticipated that reduction of energy consumption and solvent to be used the non-aqueous applications in the food sector alone will save processing costs with a factor 1000 of the project costs.

Parole chiave

Invito a presentare proposte

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Meccanismo di finanziamento

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinatore

GKSS - Forschungszentrum Geesthacht GmbH
Contributo UE
Nessun dato
Indirizzo
Max Planck-Strasse
21502 Geesthacht
Germania

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Costo totale
Nessun dato

Partecipanti (3)