Barambu Nafiu Umar, Bilad Muhammad Roil, Huda Nurul, Nordin Nik Abdul Hadi Md, Bustam Mohamad Azmi, Doyan Aris, Roslan Jumardi
Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia.
Faculty of Applied Science and Education, Universitas Pendidikan Mandalika (UNDIKMA), Jl. Pemuda No. 59A, Mataram 83126, Indonesia.
Membranes (Basel). 2021 May 19;11(5):370. doi: 10.3390/membranes11050370.
Membrane technology is one of reliable options for treatment of oil/water emulsion. It is highly attractive because of its effectiveness in separating fine oil droplets of <2 µm sizes, which is highly challenging for other processes. However, the progress for its widespread implementations is still highly restricted by membrane fouling. Most of the earlier studies have demonstrated the promise of achieving more sustained filtration via membrane material developments. This study addresses issues beyond membrane development by assessing the impact of membrane material (blend of polysulfone, PSF and polyethylene glycol, PEG), operational pressure, and crude oil concentration on the filtration performance of oil/water emulsion. The filtration data were then used to project the pumping energy for a full-scale system. Results show that fouling resistant membrane offered high oil/water emulsion permeability, which translated into a low energy consumption. The oil/water emulsion permeability was improved by three-fold from 45 ± 0 to 139 ± 1 L/(m h bar) for PSF/PEG-0 membrane in comparison to the most optimum one of PSF/PEG-60. It corresponded to an energy saving of up to ~66%. The pumping energy could further be reduced from 27.0 to 7.6 Wh/m by operation under ultra-low pressure from 0.2 to 0.05 bar. Sustainable permeability could be achieved when treating 1000 ppm oil/water emulsion, but severe membrane fouling was observed when treating emulsion containing crude oils of >3000 ppm to a point of no flux.
膜技术是处理油/水乳液的可靠选择之一。它极具吸引力，因为它能有效分离尺寸小于2微米的细小油滴，而这对其他工艺来说极具挑战性。然而，其广泛应用的进展仍受到膜污染的严重限制。大多数早期研究表明，通过膜材料的开发有望实现更持续的过滤。本研究通过评估膜材料（聚砜、PSF和聚乙二醇、PEG的混合物）、操作压力和原油浓度对油/水乳液过滤性能的影响，解决了膜开发之外的问题。然后，过滤数据被用于预测全尺寸系统的泵送能量。结果表明，抗污染膜具有高的油/水乳液渗透率，这意味着低能耗。与最优化的PSF/PEG - 60膜相比，PSF/PEG - 0膜的油/水乳液渗透率从45±0提高到139±1升/（平方米·小时·巴），提高了三倍。这相当于节省了高达约66%的能源。通过在0.2至0.05巴的超低压下运行，泵送能量可进一步从27.0降至7.6瓦时/立方米。处理1000 ppm的油/水乳液时可实现可持续渗透率，但处理含油量>3000 ppm的乳液时会观察到严重的膜污染，直至通量为零。
