title: Air slugs entrapped cross-flow filtration of bacterial suspensions.
abstract: A novel cross-flow technique for membrane filtration of bacterial cell suspensions was established. This is an air slugs entrapped cross-flow method in which air slugs were generated by introducing air into the cross-flow stream. As air slugs moved along with cross-flow, the disturbance of cell sublayer formation on membrane surface was enhanced. As a consequence, filtration flux was improved and stabilized. The effect of air slugs on improving filtration flux was more pronounced in filtering gram-negative Escherichia coli cell than gram-positive Brevibacterium flavum cell. Moreover, air slug was about 50% more effective on reducing filtration resistance using ultrafiltration (UF) membrane of 300,000 molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) than microfiltration (MF) membrane of 0.2 microm.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan 10772, Republic of China.
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: W G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Y H
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Ju