Study of the ageing of hollow fibers in an industrial module for drinking water production

In this study, ageing characteristics of an industrial hollow-fiber membrane module were investigated after 50 months of drinking water production. For this purpose, the industrial module was opened to make 18 smaller modules with hollow-fibers taken from different parts of the industrial module. These modules were probed by the use of a magnetic nanoparticle (NP) challenge test based on magnetic susceptibility (K) measurement of permeate. No magnetic susceptibility was detected in permeate when the challenge test was performed on an intact membrane module, indicating the complete retention of nanoparticles by the membrane. The compromised membrane module can be successfully detected by means of magnetic susceptibility measurement in permeate. So, this study clearly demonstrates that ageing of ultrafiltration membranes can be monitored by measuring the magnetic susceptibility of permeate from an ultrafiltration membrane module. These results showed that the hollow fibers in the center zones of the bundle would age faster than those in the outer zones around the bundle. This result is in agreement with numerical simulation (Daurelle et al. 2011).