Performance prediction of flat sheet commercial nanofiltration membrane using Donnan-Steric Pore Model

The rejection of sodium chloride (NaCl) and calcium chloride (CaCl2) single salt solutions were carried out for commercial nanofiltration NFDK membrane. Results showed that the NFDK membrane had a negative surface charge and had a higher observed rejection of 93.65% for calcium (Ca2+) ion and 78.27% for sodium (Na+) ions. Prediction of rejection for aqueous solutions of both salts was made using Donnan Steric Pore Model based on Extended Nernst-Planck Equation in addition to concentration polarization film theory. A MATLAB program was developed to execute the model calculations. Absolute Average Relative Error (% AARE) was found below 5% for real rejection of the NFDK membrane. This research could be used successfully to assess the membrane characterization parameter using a proposed procedure which can reduce the number of experiments.