Application of Electric field on Membrane Ultrafiltration

An external DC electric field has a positive effect in membrane filtration, the related configurations
are of equal importance to influence the control results at the same time. Hence, it must be designed
carefully and feasibly. There have been two different coupling configurations reported for coupling applied
electric field across a membrane system. One is that the electric field is applied across a membrane with
two metal electrodes placed on both sides of the membrane when the membrane is almost insulated (the
traditional configuration); another kind, when the membrane is modified by conductive materials such as
metal, carbon, is to use the membrane as the working electrode and metallic materials acts as the counter
electrode (the modified one). Detail illustrations are as follows.

Figure 1.1

Coupling orientations

Modified Coupling Configuration

When the membrane is modified with metal, carbon or any other conductive materials, it can be
directly used as the negative electrode in the modified coupling configuration, with the results of simpler
design and less resistance between the electrodes, compared with the traditional coupling configuration.
Therefore, the real magnitude can decrease as low as just several voltages in the modified coupling
configuration for obtaining the same electric field strength or equivalent filtration enhancement.

Figure 1.2

Modified Coupling Configuration Setup

 The key of this modified configuration is the synthesis of the highly conducting membrane. One of
the promising methods is the addition of carbon nanotubes to improve the conductivity of the organic
membrane via blending, surface oxidation or vacuum filtration, owing to its outstanding conductivity and
mechanical property. But it doesn’t have any advantage in view of economy, so novel materials and
methods are required to be explored for practical applications and industrial extensions. In a whole, the
traditional coupling configuration and the modified one can be applied into cross flow filtration system.
What we cannot neglect is that dead-end filtration is also widely used in practice. Whether this coupling
technology can be applied in dead-end filtration process deserves to be discussed in following researches.

Membrane Fouling Mitigation for Charged Particles

The charged particles in the influent would experience multiple forces when DC electric field is
applied to the membrane surface during filtration including electric field forces caused by DC, inherent
gravity, electrostatic repulsion between particles, and hydrodynamic forces induced by filtration, even the
shear force raised with the aeration in actual engineering applications. The resultant forces determine the
final movement of the particle. Generally, the dominating effects of electric field on charged particles are
electro kinetic, which are electrophoresis and electrostatic repulsion in membrane system.
For the traditional DC electric field membrane coupling configuration, a charged particle relies
mainly on the electrophoresis to stay away from the membrane surface since the membrane itself is
nonconductive. As to the modified coupling process based on the conducting membrane, electrostatic
repulsion cannot be ignored either. When the conducting membrane works as the cathode, electrostatic
repulsion occurs between negatively charged particles and negatively charged membrane. Particles are
repelled from the surface as a result of electrostatic repulsion accompanied by electrophoresis.
Despite the theoretical support for external DC electric field exerts various forces on charged
particles, there are no straight forward methods to quantify and simplify this situation. More insight into
the calculation measures may impel the deeper understanding of membrane fouling control mechanism.

Figure 1.3

Proposed Model for Electrically Enhanced Ultrafiltration (Geng, Cheng)