Study of fouling mechanism in magnolia official aqueous extract clarification by ceramic membranes

The observed flux decay of different pore size ceramic membrane was modeled using a modified differential equation used to describe classical dead-end filtration process. The results reveal that the separation processes of 50 nm, 200 nm and 500 nm ceramic tubular membranes are controlled by 'complete pore blocking', 'cake filtration' and 'intermediate blocking filtration' mechanism respectively. According to the fouling mechanism, a feasible cleaning method was found. And the membrane water flux recovery rate is 84.5%, 89.4% and 90.0% respectively. The results show that the 200 nm ceramic membrane is more suitable for the system.