Treatment of soy oil effluent using ultrafiltration

A pilot-scale ultrafiltration (UF) system is applied to determine UF process feasibility for treating soy oil effluent. Effluent pollutions consist of turbidity, total solid (TS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and oil and grease. Permeate flux and rejection percentages of pollutants are evaluated at different temperatures and transmembrane pressures (TMPs) using nitrocellulose membrane. Permeate flux is increased with increasing temperature and TMP. Considerable amount of effluent pollutants is reduced by used membrane as the rejection percentage for TS, BOD, COD, and oil and grease are about 50%, 70%, 70%, and 55%, respectively. The best separation performance of nitrocellulose membrane is in reduction of effluent turbidity which is almost 95%.