• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.775-780
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• 2005

This study was performed to investigate the effect of foulant characteristics on Membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI). A linear relationship was found relating the fouling index (both SDI and MFI) on particle concentration, but fouling index values were nonlinearly (exponentially) with increasing organic concentration. When organic matter was the primary cause of fouling, the MFI was not accurately predicted due to internal fouling such as pore adsorption. The fouling index was determined mainly by particle characteristics when both particle and organic coexisted in the feed water. This observation was attributed to lessening of organic pore adsorption by particle cake layer formed on the membrane surface. Bench-scale actual fouling experiments demonstrated that permeate flux declines much faster with feed water containing particles than organic matters although fouling potential predicted by SDI values were identical, indicating that the accurate prediction of fouling potential requires the development of fouling index reflecting different foulant characteristics.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.149-157
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• 2011

Nanofiltration (NF) experiments were conducted to investigate fouling of Al-hydroxide precipitate and the influence of organic compound, inorganic compound, and their combination, i.e., multiple foulants. $CaCl_2$ and $MgSO_4$ were employed as surrogates of inorganic compounds while humic acid was used as surrogate of organic compound. The flux attained from NF experiments was fitted with the mathematical fouling model to evaluate the potential fouling mechanisms. Al-hydroxide fouling with a cake formation mechanism had little effect on the NF membrane fouling regardless of the Al concentration. The NF fouling by Al-hydroxide precipitate was deteriorated in presence of inorganic matter. The effect of Mg was more critical in increasing the fouling than Ca. This is because the Mg ions enhanced the resistances of the cake layer accumulated by the Al-hydroxide precipitate on the membrane surfaces. However, the fouling with Mg was dramatically mitigated by adding humic acid. It is interesting to observe that the removal of the conductivity was enhanced to 61.2% in presence of Mg and humic acid from 30.9% with Al-hydroxide alone. The influence of dissolved matter (i.e., colloids) was more negative than particulate matter on the NF fouling for Al-hydroxide precipitate in presence of inorganic and organic matter.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.534-541
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• 2003

Membrane processes are now frequently considered for application in drinking water treatment. The biggest impediment for applying membrane processes is fouling that comes from mass flux (such as particle and organic matter) to the membrane surface and its pores due to convection flow through the membrane. Natural organic matter (NOM) has been reported as the most detrimental foulant. Some research also indicated that particles were often the dominant cause of fouling. Therefore, both NOM and particle fouling need to be examined to better understand fouling in ultrafiltration. Two waters from natural sources, Lake Austin water and Missouri River water, were selected. Both waters are relatively hard waters but has significantly different particle concentrations, which will elucidate effects of particles on membrane fouling. Precipitative softening is traditionally designed to remove hardness ions in hard waters but it can also remove particles and organic matter. Therefore, the integrated water treatment with softening and ultrafiltration is proposed as a promising option for hard waters. The three levels of softening were used to represent different degrees of pretreatment to ultrafiltration in terms of organic matter (i.e., NOM fouling) and precipitates (i.e., particle fouling by further precipitation). Results showed that natural particles in Missouri River water was detrimental foulants of ultrafiltration. As the levels of softening were increased, NOM and particle removal was increased, and thus fouling was decreased. Direct images of the surface of the membranes by scanning electron microscopy allowed observation of the different properties of particles caught in fibril networks of natural organic matter.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2014

Natural organic matter (NOM) is a primary component of fouling in low-pressure membrane filtration, either solely, or in concert with colloidal particles. Various preventive measures to interfere with NOM fouling have been developed and extensively tested, such as coagulation, oxidation, ion exchange, carbon adsorption, and mineral oxide adsorption. Therefore, this article aims to conduct a literature review covering the topics of low-pressure membrane processes, NOM characteristics and fouling behaviors, and diverse fouling control strategies. In-depth explanations and discussion are made regarding why some treatment options are able to remove NOM from source water, but do not reduce fouling. This review provides insight for hybridized membrane processes with respect to NOM removal and fouling mitigation in water treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.133-138
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• 2015

Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) process is one of membrane processes for harvesting renewable energy by using salinity difference between feed and draw solutions. Power is generated by permeation flux multiplied by hydraulic pressure in draw side. Membrane fouling phenomena in PRO process is presumed to be less sever, but it is inevitable. Membrane fouling in PRO process decreases water permeation through membrane, resulting in significant power production decline. This study intended to investigate the effect of hydraulic pressure in PRO process on alginate induced organic fouling as high and low hydraulic pressures (6.5 bar and 12 bar) were applied for 24 h under the same initial water flux. In addition, organic fouling in draw side from the presence of foulant (sodium alginate) in draw solution was examined. As major results, hydraulic pressure was found to be not a significant factor affecting in PRO organic fouling as long as the same initial water flux is maintained, inidicating that operating PRO process with high hydraulic pressure for efficient energy harvesting will not cause severe organic fouling. In addition, flux decline was negligible from the presence of organic foulant in draw side.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.55-66
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• 2002

fouling phenomena of ion exchange membranes were reviewed for improved design and operation of electodialysis. The membrane fouling index for electrodialysis (EDMFI) was defined for the quantitative analysis of fouling potential as an analogy to the pressure-driven membrane process. fouling phenomena were compared in the electrodialysis experiments with inorganic foulant (silica sol) and organic foulants (humate and bovine serum albumin (BSA)), and their fouling potentials were analyzed using the fouling index. The comparison showed that the EDMFI could be used as a quantitative measure of the fouling tendency in electrodialysis processes. As a novel fouling mitigation method, square wave power was reported to be effective in electrodialysis with organic foulants. The square wave powers having the pulsed electric field enabled to reduce the membrane fouling significantly at an optimal frequency.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.185-199
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• 2017

Low-pressure membrane filtration is increasingly used for tertiary treatment of wastewater effluent organic matter (EfOM), mainly comprising organic base/neutral compounds. In-line coagulation with underdosing, charge neutralization, and sweep floc conditions prior to ultrafiltration (UF) was studied to determine removals of the EfOM components and consequent reduction of fouling using polyethersulfone membranes. Coagulation and UF substantially reduced fouling for all coagulation conditions while removing from 7 to 38% of EfOM organic acids. From 7 to 16% of EfOM organic base/neutrals were removed at neutral pH but there was no significant removal for slightly acid coagulation conditions even though fouling was substantially reduced. Sweep floc produced the lowest resistance to filtration but may be inappropriate for in-line use due to the large added volume of solids. Charge-neutralization resulted in poor recovery of the initial flux with hydraulic cleaning. Under-dosing paralleled sweep floc in reducing hydraulic resistance to filtration (for sub-critical flux) and the initial flux was also easily recovered with hydraulic cleaning. Hydrophobic and hydrophilic base/neutrals were identified on the fouled membranes but as previously reported the extent of fouling was not correlated with accumulation of organic base/neutrals.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.131-137
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• 2020

In this study, effect of inorganic particles on organic fouling was investigated by a laboratory-scaled pressurized membrane filtration. In order to cause organic fouling, sodium alginate (SA) was used as a feed solution. Regardless of the presence of inorganic SiO₂ particles, the complete pore blocking played an important role in determining the fouling rate during the initial period of membrane filtration. However, the formation of cake layer resulted in the membrane fouling more dominantly as filtration time progressed. In the presence of inorganic particles, both specific cake resistance and compressibility associated with the membrane fouling formed were relatively lower than that without SiO₂ particles. Membrane fouling was more severe at constant flux mode of filtration than that observed at constant pressure mode probably due to the concomitant increase of compressibility of fouling layer with transmembrane pressure (TMP). It was found that the presence of SA and SiO₂ particles in feed solution provided the synergistic effect on the hydraulic backwashing to reduce membrane fouling as compared to the SA solution alone without the inorganic particles.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.171-176
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• 2011

Organic matters that comprise a tiny part of seawater generally occur over 50% of membrane fouling in Reverse Osmosis Process. This study evaluates Foundation efficiency of reverse osmosis membranes under brackish and seawater conditions and resistance of organic fouling. Moreover, analyzing the membrane surface through roughness, contact angle and zeta potential results in roughness and contact angle are proportional to flux decline rate (FDR), yet FDR has high value when zeta potential is low level. Furthermore, with various membrane fouling of different raw water conditions, the flux tends to improve when pH value is high and raw water which is complex with organic and cation pollutes membrane faster than organic separated raw water condition.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.1079-1085
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to find the operational characteristics of nitrifier-dominated membrane bioreactor (MBR), which has been extensively studied for organic removal, especially in terms of nitrite ($NO_2$-N) build-up and membrane fouling. Membrane fouling is one of the important factor which determines the economics of MBR system. The characteristics of membrane fouling was monitored in terms of the fouling indices such as sludge volume index (SVI), the concentration of total organic carbon (TOC) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in a membrane permeate or sludge extract, the absorbance of supernatant at 260 nm. Most of index values except for protein concentration in EPS had a close relation with the increase of suction pressure and SVI value. Nitrifying MBR was superior to the conventional organic-oxidizing MBR in terms of membrane fouling since the fouling index value of nitrifying MBR was lower than that of BOD-oxidizing MBR.