Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-367 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, Advanced Water Research Lab (AWRL), University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6G 1H9, Canada.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 22;9(1):10587. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-47096-6.
The work investigates fouling in a microfluidic membrane mimic (MMM) filtration system for foulants such as polystyrene particles and large polymeric molecules. Our MMM device consists of a staggered arrangement of pillars which enables real-time visualization and analysis of pore-scale phenomena. Different fouling scenarios are investigated by conducting constant-pressure experiments. Fouling experiments are performed with three different types of foulants: polystyrene particle solution (colloidal fouling), polyacrylamide polymer solution (organic fouling) and a mixture of these two solutions (combined fouling). Four major categories of microscopic fouling are observed: cake filtration (upstream), pore blocking (inside the pores), colloidal aggregation (downstream) and colloidal streamer fouling (downstream). Our microfluidic experiments show that downstream colloidal aggregation and streamer fouling have a significant effect on overall membrane fouling which were not studied before.
该工作研究了一种用于模拟微流体膜（MMM）过滤系统中污染物（如聚苯乙烯颗粒和大聚合物分子）的污垢问题。我们的 MMM 装置由交错排列的支柱组成，能够实时可视化和分析孔尺度现象。通过进行恒压实验研究了不同的污垢情况。使用三种不同类型的污染物进行污垢实验：聚苯乙烯颗粒溶液（胶体污垢）、聚丙烯酰胺聚合物溶液（有机污垢）和这两种溶液的混合物（组合污垢）。观察到了四种主要的微观污垢类型：滤饼过滤（上游）、孔堵塞（孔内）、胶体聚集（下游）和胶体射流污垢（下游）。我们的微流体实验表明，下游胶体聚集和射流污垢对整体膜污垢有显著影响，这是以前没有研究过的。
