Measurements and evaluation of concentration distributions in filter cake formed in dead-end ultrafiltration of protein solutions

To clarify the internal structures of the filter cake formed on the membrane surface in protein ultrafiltration, a method has been developed for measuring the variations of protein concentration across the filter cake on the basis of the principle of inclined ultrafiltration, where the membrane was inclined and a large amount of filter cake was formed, and the results were compared with the calculations based on a compressible cake filtration model, which explicitly took the non-homogeneity and the compressibility of the filter cake into account. The experimental results obtained from ultrafiltration of bovine serum albumin (BSA) solutions under constant pressure conditions clearly demonstrated that the filter cake tended to have a much more compact structure at the membrane in comparison with a relatively loose condition at the surface. It was also found that the thickness of the filter cake formed on the membrane increased as the filtration progressed. Further, the effects of pH and the solute concentration in the feed solution on the structure of the filter cake have been examined experimentally. The measured concentration distributions accorded well with the calculated results based on a compressible cake filtration model. This study revealed that the dynamic deposition behaviors of the protein molecules in dead-end ultrafiltration could be accurately described by a compressible cake filtration model.