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Ultrafiltration and microfiltration membrane performance, cleaning, and flux recovery for microalgal harvesting

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Abstract

Membrane material, pore size, and cleaning strategy are important factors for microalgal membrane harvesting. In this study, harvesting of Scenedesmus acuminatus cultivated in pilot scale using nine ultrafiltration and three microfiltration membranes was carried out in cross-flow filtration system to compare their filtration performance and flux recovery after physical and chemical cleaning. The 0.45-μm PVDF-AsahiKASEI membrane had the highest average flux of 513.6 L m−2 h−1 among 12 membranes and 50-kDa PVC-Litree membrane had the highest average flux of 98.0 L m−2 h−1 among nine ultrafiltration membranes for 60 L S. acuminatus suspension harvesting. There were significantly positive correlations between membrane pore size, pure water flux, and average flux for S. acuminatus suspension harvesting. Generally, ultrafiltration membrane had moderate total fouling index (TFI) and high proportion of hydraulic reversible fouling index (HRFI) of more than 95%. The 0.45-μm PVDF-AsahiKASEI membrane had a low TFI but the lowest proportion of HRFI, associated with the residual microalgal cells, debris, and colloids on the inner surface and top ends of some cells inserted to big membrane pores, demonstrated by SEM image and reduced porosity from 65.9 to 60.2%. Compared to soaking cleaning, circulation cleaning strategy had a better flux recovery efficiency for 0.45-μm PVDF-AsahiKASEI membrane, proving that it would be a potential way in membrane chemical cleaning. This study demonstrated that microfiltration with high flux has great potential in microalgal harvesting if flux recovery efficiency can be significantly increased using suitable cleaning strategy such as circulation cleaning strategy.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Sumeng Ren, Kui Du, Bo Pan, Liu Wu and Chunhao Xiang for filtration tests, and Dr. Yuan Xiao (Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for her help in SEM imaging.

Funding

The authors received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31672625 and 51678561), State Development & Investment Corporation in China (Y341151Z09), the One-Hundred Scholars Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y62305-1-Z01), and the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ZDRW-ZS-2017-2).

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Author notes

  1. Rui Liu and Lan Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Microalgal Biotechnology and Biofuels, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Rui Liu, Lan Wang, Li Yang, Qingling Liu, Yunxiao Gao, Jing Ye, Jingrong Xiao, Qiang Hu & Xuezhi Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory for Algal Biology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Rui Liu, Lan Wang, Li Yang, Qingling Liu, Yunxiao Gao, Jing Ye, Jingrong Xiao, Qiang Hu & Xuezhi Zhang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Rui Liu & Jing Ye

  4. State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Qiang Hu

  5. The Innovative Academy of Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100864, China

    Qiang Hu

  6. Microalgae Biotechnology Center, SDIC Biotech Investment Co., LTD., State Development & Investment Corp, Beijing, 100142, China

    Qiang Hu

  7. Beijing Key Laboratory of Algae Biomass, SDIC Biotech Investment Corporation, Beijing, 100142, China

    Qiang Hu

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  1. Rui Liu
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  2. Lan Wang
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Correspondence to Qiang Hu or Xuezhi Zhang.

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Liu, R., Wang, L., Yang, L. et al. Ultrafiltration and microfiltration membrane performance, cleaning, and flux recovery for microalgal harvesting. J Appl Phycol 32, 3101–3112 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-020-02204-2

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