Title: Prediction of flux decline during membrane filtration of leather plant effluent

Authors: V. Dinesh Kumar; Damodar Maity; Mihir Kumar Purkait

Addresses: Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India. ' Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. ' Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India

Abstract: A membrane-based scheme has been proposed for the treatment of leather plant effluent. The effluent coming out from the various steps of leather plant are combined and Nanofiltration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) are adopted. Performances of two NF membranes are evaluated. Experiments are conducted using an unstirred batch cell. It is observed that a combined operation of NF using 400 MWCO membrane followed by RO operation is better option compared to a single operation of NF with 200 MWCO (membrane). The experimental flux data are correlated and analysed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN).

Keywords: flux decline; membrane filtration; leather plant effluent; ANNs; artificial neural networks; back-propagation algorithm; nanofiltration; reverse osmosis; effluent treatment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2012.044164

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2012 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.123 - 140

Published online: 13 Dec 2014 *

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