• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.547-553
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• 2018

An integrated iron and steel mill uses a large amount of water and produces wastewater which contains various contaminants such as iron, manganese, etc. Especially, in some regions of Southeast Asia, the concentration of silica in iron and steel mill wastewater is higher than in other countries. Silica is known to be one of the main causes for fouling in the membrane processes for water reuse. In cases of high concentrations of silica in iron and steel mill wastewater, the ferrous silicate tends to be formed. This could lead to higher fouling tendency depositing on the membrane surface. Therefore we conducted a pilot test to investigate the effect of silica and iron on the fouling tendency of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane for treating two types of wastewater from an integrated iron and steel mill. In this case of treated wastewater from iron and steel mill, RO pilot plant was operated with the fluxes 15.9LMH and 18.8LMH for 112 days to investigate the fouling characteristics. The results found that the fluctuation of flux was much wider than the average flux and the minimum permeability was low at 78%. In the case of treated runoff from an integrated iron and steel mill, the average concentration of iron was lower than in wastewater. RO pilot test was conducted with the flux 18.8LMH for 46 days. The results found that runoff had a lower fouling tendency and pre-treatment using microfiltration (MF) could minimize the fouling problem of RO.