• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.373-383
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• 2018

Fouling by solids and microorganisms is the major obstacle limiting the efficient use of membrane wastewater treatment. In our previous study, two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was proposed to treat anaerobic digested palm oil mill effluent (AnPOME). This two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system had showed great potential for the treatment of AnPOME with high removal of COD, $NH_3-N$, $PO_4{^{3-}}$, TSS, turbidity, and colour. However, fouling behavior of the membrane in this two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was still unknown. In this study, empirical models that describe permeate flux decline for dead-end filtration (pore blocking - complete, intermediate, and standard; and cake layer formation) presented by Hermia were used to fit the experimental results in identifying the fouling mechanism under different experimental conditions. Both centrifuged and non-centrifuged samples were taken from the medium with 3 days RT intervals, from day 0 to day 12 to study their influence on fouling mechanisms described by Hermia for ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) filtration mode. Besides, a more detailed study on the use of resistance-in-series model for deadend filtration was done to investigate the fouling mechanisms involved in membrane filtration of AnPOME collected after microalgae treatment. The results showed that fouling of UF and NF membrane was mainly caused by cake layer formation and it was also supported by the analysis for resistance-in-series model. Whereas, fouling of RO membrane was dominated by concentration polarization.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.139-146
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• 2013

A process diagnosis method for membrane water treatment plant was developed using a constant flux membrane fouling model. This diagnosis method can be applied to a real-field membrane-based water treatment plant as an early alarming system for membrane fouling. The constant flux membrane fouling model was based on the simplest equation form to describe change in trans-membrane pressure (TMP) during the filtration cycle from a literature. The model was verified using a pilot-scale microfiltraton (MF) plant with two commercial MF membrane modules (72 m2 of membrane area). The predicted TMP data were produced using the model, where the modeling parameters were obtained by the least square method using the early plant data and modeling equations. The diagnosis was carried out by comparing the predicted TMP data (as baseline) and real plant data. As a result of the case study, the diagnsis method worked pretty well to predict the early points where fouling started to occur.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.321-328
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• 2017

Recently EC-MBR (Elctrocoagulation - Membrane Bio Reactor) has been suggested as one of alternative processes to overcome membrane fouling problems. Most important operational parameters in the EC-MBR are known to current density and contact time. Their effect on membrane filtration performances has been reported well, however, quantitative interrelationship between both parameters not been investigated yet. The purpose of this study is to give a kinetic model suggesting the current density and the contact time required to reduce the membrane fouling. The 4 different set of current densities (2.5, 6, 12 and $24A/m^2$) and contact times (0, 2, 6 and 12 hr) were selected as operational parameters. After each electro-coagulation under the 16 different conditions, a series of membrane filtration was carried out. The membrane fouling decreased as the current density and contact time increased, Total fouling resistances under different conditions, $R_t(=R_c+R_f)$ were calculated and compared to those of the controls ($R_0$), which were calculated from the data of experiments without electro-coagulation. A kinetic approach for the fouling reduction rate ($R_t/R_0$) was carried out and the equation ${\rho}^{0.46}_it=7.0$ was obtained, which means that the product of current density and the contact time needed to reduce the fouling in certain amounts (in this study, 10% of fouling reduction) is always constant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.581-588
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• 2020

The membrane fouling is an important problem for FO applied to the radioactive wastewater treatment. The FO fouling characteristics for simulated radioactive wastewater treatment was investigated. On-line cleaning by deionized (DI) water and external cleaning by ultrasound and HCl were applied for the fouled membrane. The effectiveness and foulant removing amount by each-step cleaning were evaluated. The membrane fouling was divided into three stages. Co(II), Sr(II), Cs(I), Na(I) were all found deposited on both active and support layers of the membrane surface, resulting in membrane surface became rougher and more hydrophobic, which increased membrane resistance. On-line cleaning by DI water recovered the water flux to 69%. HCl removed more foulants than ultrasound.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.535-543
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• 2006

The Ozone oxidation process was applied to increase the efficiency of reuse process when treating the secondary effluent by the membrane system. This paper focus on decreasing efficiency of membrane fouling, because of membrane fouling reduction by ozone and evaluation of application of the ozone oxidation. The feed water was secondary effluent from BNR process. The result shows that the ozone pretreatment can reduce membrane fouling effectively. Also, the improvement of treated water quality was obvious. The reduction of the membrane fouling led decrease of following pollutant and increase of lnner adsorptive ability of hydrophilic organic matter and decrease of molecular weight. MF membrane process alone can meet the domestic reuse water standards. And ozone pretreatment process also can increase the removal rates of turbidity, COD, nitrogen, and color.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.337-353
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• 2017

Membrane fouling at different solids retention times (SRT) (7, 12 and 20 days) was studied under well-controlled conditions in a laboratory-scale aerobic submerged membrane bioreactor under constant biomass concentration using a synthetic high strength wastewater. An increase in SRT was found to improve membrane performance and this correlated to changes in the total production of bound extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and the composition and properties of bound EPS using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and floc sizes. A larger amount of total bound EPS was found at the lowest SRT (7 days) tested but the ratio of proteins (PN) to carbohydrates (CH) in bound EPS increased with an increase in SRT. Similarly, the quantity of soluble microbial products (SMP) decreased with an increase in SRT and the SMP PN/CH ratio increased with an increase in SRT. SMP concentrations positively correlated to the percentage of membrane pore blocking resistance. The quantity of total bound EPS and total SMP positively corresponded to the membrane fouling rate, while the PN/CH ratio in the bound EPS and SMP negatively correlated to the membrane fouling rate. The results show that both the quantity and composition of bound EPS and SMP and floc sizes are important in controlling membrane fouling.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2020

This short review focuses on fouling by proteins and macromolecules in microfiltration/ultrafiltration. First, an experimental system that enables investigation of how the extent of the adsorption of proteins and macromolecules on membrane surfaces contributes to a decrease in filtrate flux in microfiltration/ultrafiltration is described. Using this system, a causal relationship - not a correlation - indicating that adsorption results in a decrease in filtrate flux could be clearly demonstrated in some cases. Second, a hydration structure at the membrane surface that can suppress adsorption is discussed, inspired by biomaterial research. In their hydrated states, polymers with low-fouling properties have water molecules with a particular structure. Finally, some successful examples of the development of low-fouling membranes via surface modification using low-fouling polymers are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.285-291
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• 2011

Membrane fouling is an unavoidable phenomenon and major obstacle in the economic and efficient operation under sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO). When fouling occurs on the membrane surface, the permeate quantity and quality decrease, the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and operation costs increase, and the membrane may be damaged. Therefore, chemical cleaning process is important to prevent permeate flow from decreasing in RO membrane filtration process. This study focused on proper chemical cleaning condition for Shuaibah RO plant in Saudi Arabia. Several chemical agents were used for chemical cleaning at different contact time and concentrations of chemicals. Also autopsy analysis was performed using LOI, FT-IR, FEEM, SEM and EDX for assessment of fouling. Specially, FEEM analysis method was thought as analyzing and evaluating tool available for selection of the first applied chemical cleaning dose to predict potential organic fouling. Also, cleaning time should be considered by the condition of RO membrane process since the cleaning time depends on the membrane fouling rate. If the fouling exceeds chemical cleaning guideline, to perfectly remove the fouling, certainly, the chemical cleaning is increased with membrane fouling rate influenced by raw water properties, pre-treatment condition and the point of the chemical cleaning operation time. Also choice of cleaning chemicals applied firstly is important.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.669-676
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• 2007

The raw water was fractionated into hydrophobic (HPO), transphilic (TPI), and hydrophilic portions (HPI) using XAD resins. The raw water DOC contains 39% of hydrophilics, 43% of hydrophobics, and 18% of transphilics. When fractionated NOM (natural organic matter) was passed through hydrophilic membrane with 100 kDa, hydrophobic portion (HPO) caused the most fouling and hydrophilic portion (HPI) caused the least fouling. This could be related to size and adsorption capability of organics. Small sized organics would pass through membrane pores, but large sized organics would be attracted to either membrane pores or surface, which led to the fouling. An effect of membrane pore size on membrane fouling is related to the availability of organics at membrane pores. As the pore size became larger, the more organics were transported into the membrane pore. Some organics caused pore blocking, and others caused pore adsorption, which resulted in membrane fouling. Membrane material is also important for membrane fouling. More fouling occurred at hydrophobic membrane than hydrophilic membrane regardless of its pore size. Hydrophobic interaction caused more fouling at hydrophobic membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.389-395
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• 2017

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of membrane fouling caused by water temperature in the Membrane bioreactor(MBR) process and try to derive the membrane fouling control by chemical enhanced backwashing(CEB). The extracellular polymeric substances(EPS) concentration was analyzed according to the water temperature in the MBR, and the membrane fouling characteristics were investigated according to the conditions, with sludge & without sludge, through a lab-scale reactor. As shown in the existing literature the fouling resistance rate was increased within sludge with the water temperature was lowered. However, in the lab-scale test using the synthetic wastewater, the fouling resistance increased with the water temperature. This is because that the protein of the EPS was more easily adsorbed on the membrane surface due to the increase of entropy due to the structural rearrangement of the protein inside the protein as the water temperature increases. In order to control membrane fouling, we tried to derive the cleaning characteristics of CEB by using sodium hypochlorite(NaOCl). We selected the condition with the chemicals and the retention time, and the higher the water temperature and the chemical concentration are the higher the efficiencies. It is considered that the increasing temperature accelerated the chemical reaction such as protein peptide binding and hydrolysis, so that the attached proteinaceous structure was dissolved and the frequency of the reaction collision with the protein with the chemical agent becomes higher. These results suggest that the MBRs operation focus on the fouling control of cake layer on membrane surface in low temperatures. On the other hand, the higher the water temperature is the more the operation strategies of fouling control by soluble EPS adsorption are needed.