Premium
Testing the membrane plugging factor in reverse osmosis
Author(s) -
Comstock Daniel
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1982.tb04978.x
Subject(s) - reverse osmosis , membrane , filtration (mathematics) , suspension (topology) , chromatography , materials science , chemical engineering , environmental engineering , environmental science , chemistry , engineering , mathematics , biochemistry , statistics , homotopy , pure mathematics
The plugging factor or silt density index test is being used widely as a predictor of feedwater quality for reverse osmosis. A research project was conducted to determine the theory behind this important membrane test. It was determined that in most instances, plugging of membrane filters was due to blocking filtration by particles of the filtered suspension. For seawater, an additional plugging mechanism—organic molecules—came into play.