• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.487-494
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• 2005

Nowadays a large amount of wastewater containing metal working fluids and cleaning agents is generated during the cleaning process of parts working in various industries of automobile, machine and metal, and electronics etc. In this study, aqueous or semi-aqueous cleaning wastewater contaminated with soluble or nonsoluble oils was treated using ultrafiltration system. And the membrane permeability flux and performance of oil-water separation (or COD removal efficiency) of the ultrafiltration system employing PAN as its membrane material were measured at various operating conditions with change of membrane pore sizes and soil concentrations of wastewater and examined their suitability for wastewater treatment contaminated with soluble or insoluble oil. As a result, in case of wastewater contaminated with soluble oil and aqueous or semi-aqueous cleaning agent, the membrane permeability increased rapidly even though COD removal efficiency was almost constant as 90 or 95％ as the membrane pore size increased from 10 kDa to 100 kDa. However, in case of the wastewater contaminated with nonsoluble oil and aqueous or semi-aqueous cleaning agent, as the membrane pore size increased from 10 kDa to 100 kDa and the soil concentration of wastewater increased, the membrane permeability was reduced rapidly while COD removal efficiency was almost constant. These phenomena explain that since the membrane material is hydrophilic PAN material, it blocks nonsoluble oil and reduces membrane permeability. Thus, it can be concluded that the aqueous or semi-aqueous cleaning solution contaminated with soluble oil can be treated by ultrafiltration system with the membrane of PAN material and its pore size of 100 kDa. Based on these basic experimental results, a pilot plant facility of ultrafiltration system with PAN material and 100 kDa pore size was designed, installed and operated in order to treat and recycle alkaline cleaning solution contaminated with deep drawing oil. As a result of its field application, the ultrafiltration system was able to separate aqueous cleaning solution and soluble oil effectively, and recycle them. Further more, it can increase life span of aqueous cleaning solution 12 times compared with the previous process.