Ultrafiltration for Treatment of Natural Rubber Effluent Using Gas Sparging Technique

摘要

Physical and chemical properties of natural rubber effluent have been influenced by large amounts of non-rubber compounds and chemicals, which can seriously damage or kill the natural flora and fauna of the waters when the effluent is discharged untreated. This study presents the application of membrane technology for the treatment of natural rubber processing effluent that involves gas injection technique. During the experiments, permeate was collected and analysed for several characteristics such as total solids (TS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total nitrogen and ammoniacal nitrogen (NH_3-N). The results showed that the use of gas sparging technique enhanced total permeate flux in the range 8.3% and 145.3% compared to the non-gas sparging technique. In terms of permeate quality, reductions achieved for TS, COD, BOD, total nitrogen and NH_3-N were 95%, 67%, 77%, 51%, 74%, respectively. For the non-gas sparging technique, permeate flux declined sharply with time due to the accumulation of foulant on the membrane surface. However both conditions showed increase of total permeate flux with transmembrane pressure and feed flow-rate.