Separation Science and Technology, Vol.38, No.2, 295-322, 2003
Viability of the use of polymer-assisted ultratiltration for continuous water softening
We examined the viability of a continuous metal-removing process using polymer-assisted ultrafiltration. The proposed system has two connected sections at different pH. Each section has an ultrafiltration membrane that filters the aqueous solution and retains the polymer. In the first section, the metal is attached to the polymer. In the second section, the metal is detached. The polymer is recycled, and then recovered, by pumping from the second section into the first section. Preliminary experiments provided sufficient information for simulations of the continuous removal of Ca2+ from water. A poly(acrylic acid-maleic anhydride) sodium salt was selected as the polymer. Ceramic membranes of 5 kDa cut-off were used to filtrate the aqueous solutions. We show that the proposed system continuously removes Ca2+ from water in a satisfactory way.