Effect of Ultrasound on the Treatment of Emulsification Wastewater by Ceramic Membranes^* * Supported by the Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No.2003CB615707) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.20436030).

Ultrasonic field was applied in the treatment of oil emulsification wastewater by ZrO₂ ceramic membrane. The permeate flux, rejection ratio in the filtration process and recovery ratio of flux in the membrane cleaning process were measured. Great improvement in the permeate flux and rejection ratio have been observed for the membrane process enhanced by the ultrasonic field. The permeate flux of water through the membrane was about 210L·m^-2·h^-1 and the oil rejection ratio was over 99.9% under the optimal ultrasonic treatment conditions, which were 8W of ultrasonic power, 7cm of ultrasonic probe length introduced into the membrane channel and the same ultrasonic radiation direction as the wastewater flow. The resistance of the membrane process was compared between the cases with and without ultrasound, and the total resistance was reduced 68% by the use of ultrasound. Four methods including water cleaning, water cleaning under sonication, chemical cleaning and chemical cleaning under sonication were used to recover membrane flux. It was found that the flux recovery ratio increased with the increase of ultrasonic cleaning power. In addition, the use of chemical agents combining with ultrasonic irradiation showed a synergistic effect, which resulted in the highest cleaning efficiency and the shorter cleaning time.