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Shafie SNA, Shen WY, Jaymon JJ, Nordin NAHM, Mohamednour AEE, Bilad MR, Kee LM, Matsuura T, Othman MHD, Jaafar J, Ismail AF. Controlling Air Bubble Formation Using Hydrophilic Microfiltration Diffuser for C. vulgaris Cultivation. Membranes 2022; 12:membranes12040414. [PMID: 35448384 PMCID: PMC9027748 DOI: 10.3390/membranes12040414] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2022] [Revised: 04/03/2022] [Accepted: 04/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
In this project, a commercial polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane was coated with a thin layer of polyether block amide (PEBAX) via vacuum filtration to improve hydrophilicity and to study the bubble formation. Two parameters, namely PEBAX concentration (of 0–1.5 wt%) and air flow rate (of 0.1–50 mL/s), were varied and their effects on the bubble size formation were investigated. The results show that the PEBAX coating reduced the minimum membrane pore size from 0.46 μm without coating (hereafter called PEBAX0) to 0.25 μm for the membrane coated with 1.5wt% of PEBAX (hereafter called PEBAX1.5). The presence of polar functional groups (N-H and C=O) in PEBAX greatly improved the membrane hydrophilicity from 118° for PEBAX0 to 43.66° for PEBAX1.5. At an air flow rate of 43 mL/s, the equivalent bubble diameter size decreased from 2.71 ± 0.14 cm for PEBAX0 to 1.51 ± 0.02 cm for PEBAX1.5. At the same air flow rate, the frequency of bubble formation increased six times while the effective gas–liquid contact area increased from 47.96 cm2/s to 85.6 cm2/s. The improved growth of C. vulgaris from 0.6 g/L to 1.3 g/L for PEBAX1.5 also shows the potential of the PEBAX surface coating porous membrane as an air sparger.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siti Nur Alwani Shafie
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
| | - Wong Yoong Shen
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
| | - Jc Jcy Jaymon
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
| | - Nik Abdul Hadi Md Nordin
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +60-137021225
| | - Abdelslam Elsir Elsiddig Mohamednour
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
| | - Muhammad Roil Bilad
- Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong BE1410, Brunei;
| | - Lam Man Kee
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; (S.N.A.S.); (W.Y.S.); (J.J.J.); (A.E.E.M.); (L.M.K.)
| | - Takeshi Matsuura
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Ottawa, 75 Laurier Ave. E, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada;
| | - Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Johor, Malaysia; (M.H.D.O.); (J.J.); (A.F.I.)
| | - Juhana Jaafar
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Johor, Malaysia; (M.H.D.O.); (J.J.); (A.F.I.)
| | - Ahmad Fauzi Ismail
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310, Johor, Malaysia; (M.H.D.O.); (J.J.); (A.F.I.)
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