NAMS 2002 Workshop - ICOM 2008

0.1 mM NaHCO3 as buffer system,1M NaCl as background electrolyte and 1 mg/l
of SiO2.
Drop method modification of the membrane resulted in better flux than bulk
modified and virgin membranes during ultrafiltration of dextran solution. It also
resulted in 10% increase in the rejection capacity than that of virgin membrane.
Drop modification of membrane also led to modest decrease in the roughness of
the membrane which reduces the membrane susceptibility to fouling. Only bulk
modification was used to polymerize the membranes in the case of ultrafiltration
of modeled sea water for the ease of use. Different sets of filtration runs were
performed such as 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and up to 6 hours to
determine the fouling patterns due to natural organic matter such as humic and
fulvic acids present in the feed solution. In this case modification led to the
increase in the permeability of the membrane and finer fouling patterns during
filtratuion.