Performance evalution of ultrafiltation for rubber glove wastewater for reclamation system

The feasibility of using flat sheet ultrafiltration (UF) Polycera® membrane for the treatment of rubber glove wastewater reclamation system was carried out in this work. Chemical characterization of the effluent also executed to compare the effluent and permeate quality. Membranes molecular weight cut off (MWCO) of 70 kDa and 100 kDa were operated in cross-flow and dead-end mode and its performance were measured with respect to permeate flux and rejection. The parameters tested in this study were chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), and color. It appeared that the 70 kDa UF membranes have higher hydrophilicity but lower permeability as compared to 100 kDa UF membrane. As 70 kDa membranes are smaller in pore size, it was observed that the membrane exhibited greater rejection in every parameter tested in contrast to 100 kDa UF membranes. The overall result showed that cross-flow filtration of 70 kDa UF membranes gave higher rejection where removal percentage of COD, TSS, and the color was observed at 66.9%, 80.24% and 82.7%, respectively. Therefore, the ultrafiltration of rubber glove effluent was successfully carried out.