Effects of Ultrasound on the Performance Improvement of Wastewater Microfiltration through a Porous Ceramic Filter

Filtration under an ultrasonic field is a technique that is gaining importance in the wastewater treatment research field, not only due to its ability as a cleaning mechanism, but also as a filtration intensifier. The main objective of this research was the study of the influence of ultrasonic waves on the filtration of the oilfield wastewater (known as produced water) in order to increase the operation performance and filter medium regenerative effectiveness. A 0.016 m hollow cylindrical porous ceramic filter was submitted to the filtration of produced water by two mechanisms: conventional filtration under vacuum and filtration under the influence of ultrasonic waves. Experiments were carried out using synthetic produced water by analyzing the variables oil and grease content (O&G) and total suspended solids (TSS) for each filtration run. Backwashing of the filter medium with distilled water was also performed to evaluate the regeneration efficiency. During conventional filtration, permeate flux decreased gradually, becoming stable around 0.06 cm.cm.s. Furthermore, in the filtration assisted by ultrasound, the permeate flux was around 0.15 cm.cm.s. Therefore, ultrasonic waves provided an increase of about 150% in the permeate flux. Moreover, the sonication improved filter medium regeneration effectiveness, even under conditions of high TSS and O&G contents. Taking into consideration the very positive results associated with the application of ultrasonic waves, this filtration technique is likely to become an important industrial process.