Champion International Corporation Limited

James W Bray

Henry A Fremont

Richard C Agar

Gregory W Marquart

A process for cleaning fouled separation membranes such as ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and microfiltration membranes is provided comprising: removing a separation membrane having a fouled surface from operation; effecting reaction on the fouled surface of said membrane of an inorganic peroxide and an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal hypohalite; and thereafter, substantially removing the foulant and the reaction products thereof from the membrane surface.

Membrane cleaning process

An ultrafiltration system has a plurality of filter modules coupled in a parallel arrangement. The flow rate at the output of each filter module is detected. When the flow rate of a given module falls below a threshold value, that module is disconnected from the ultrafiltration system and automatically coupled into a regeneration circuit so that the filter module can be cleaned. Once regenerated, the filter module is recoupled into the ultrafiltration system. If the regeneration circuit is already in use when a filter module is detected to be in need of regeneration, that module is placed in a queue for regeneration once the regeneration circuit is free, and all other modules previously placed in queue have been regenerated. While awaiting regeneration, the filter modules are kept in service in the ultrafiltration system.

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West Chester, OH, United States of America

James W Bray