The Coupling of Catalysis with Submerged Ceramic MF Membrane for Hybrid Water Treatment Process

Abstract

The purpose of coupling Microfiltration (MF) with the catalytic process is to separate suspended catalyst from a reaction solution. In this study, submerged ceramic membranes were used. Different operating modes of MF in combination with photocatalysis were investigated: (1) MF separation of the suspended catalyst without UV irradiation and reaction; (2) MF in connection with UV irradiation and active photocatalytic reaction, whereby the catalytic activities of TiO₂ catalytic particles were determined and the catalytic reaction rates of suspended particles were compared with that of deposited particles as a cake layer on the membrane surface.
The results of the first operating mode showed that a minimum cake layer of deposited catalytic particles on membrane surface was achieved which subsequently exhibited 10 % decline of normalized permeability by controlling the permeate flux.
The TOC degradation by the photocatalytic activity with immobilized catalyst was obtained in the range between 61 % and 82 % while with the 0.5 g.L^-1 catalytic particles in suspension the measured values was 91.2 % within a period of 2 hours irradiation in both investigated systems.