Particles in seawater were removed using cross-flow microfiltration in the pretreatment of desalination procedure. Inorganic salts and SiO2 were mixed with pure water to prepare the artificial seawater in the present study. The zero concentration of SiO2 in the filtrate indicates that the filtration could completely block the SiO2 particles through the membrane. The turbulence promoter was implemented into the flow channel of the microfiltration device to increase the eddy of the flow stream, and thus particles accumulation on the membrane is considerably reduced. The effects cake properties on filtration fluxes were discussed with various operating conditions. There were three configurations of turbulence promoters were welded in the experimental works and the fluid velocity distribution was examined using FLUENT software. The filtration flux increases up to 80% as the transmembrane pressure increases from 20 kPa to 60 kPa of the cross-flow velocity 0.3 m/s while only 10% the filtration flux increment as the cross-flow velocity increases from 0.1 m/s to 0.5 m/s of the transmembrane pressure 20 kPa under the operations without welding the turbulence promoter. The filtration flux decreased by 24% with the turbulence promoter of type A due to the dead zone created at the front and rear of the turbulence promoter as the cross-flow velocity of 0.1 m/s. The dead zone was reduced to obtain a higher filtration efficiency as the cross-flow velocity increases. Moreover, the filtration fluxes increase 40~77%, 12~55% and 21~119% with welding turbulence promoters of type A, type B and type C, respectively, while the cake resistances decrease by 61.3%, 35.3% and 50.1% of type A, type B and type C, respectively.
