The membrane fouling index, widely used in the reverse osmosis (RO) membrane industry, is developed mainly to assess the fouling potential of particulate matter. However, the fouling potential by organic matter should also be accurately evaluated as the productivity loss by organic fouling is often more severe than particle fouling, despite its low concentration in feed water. This study was pe...

We investigated seasonal variation in membrane fouling in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) treating municipal wastewater regarding the difference between physically reversible and irreversible fouling. Two separate MBRs with different solid retention times (SRTs) operated in parallel for about 200 days including high- and low-temperature periods to evaluate the effect of operating conditions on seas...

The presence of calcium and humic substances or natural organic matter (NOM) in surface waters can cause severe fouling of nanofiltration (NF) membranes. Conditions of fouling were studied using a stainless steel stirred cell of volume 185 mL and a membrane area of 21.2*10-4m2 at a transmembrane pressure of 5 bar. Deposition of organic matter was determined by mass balance in feed and concentra...

The fouling behavior of the hollow fiber ultrafiltration (UF) membrane by the mixtures of dissolved organic matters (DOMs) has been systematically investigated. The organic foulants included humic acid (HA), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and sodium alginate (SA), which represented humic substances, proteins and polysaccharides, respectively. According to the experimental results, the filtration pr...

Fouling of membranes decreases the applicability of the nanofiltration (NF) process, and thus a deeper understanding of membrane fouling is needed. Fouling and retention of different NF membranes by model feed waters was investigated in a laboratory-scale filtration unit. The model waters were composed so as to imitate the characteristics of chemically pre-treated surface water. No differences ...

The performance of ion exchange (IX) resin for organics removal from wastewater was assessed using advanced characterisation techniques for varying doses of IX. Organic characterisation using liquid chromatography with a photodiode array (PDA) and fluorescence spectroscopy (Method A), and UV254, organic carbon and organic nitrogen detectors (Method B), was undertaken on wastewater before and af...

The membrane bioreactor (MBR) has emerged as an efficient compact technology for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment. The major drawback impeding wider application of MBRs is membrane fouling, which significantly reduces membrane performance and lifespan, resulting in a significant increase in maintenance and operating costs. Finding sustainable membrane fouling mitigation strategies ...

The application of low pressure membranes (microfiltration/ultrafiltration) has undergone accelerated development for drinking water production. However, the major obstacle encountered in its popularization is membrane fouling caused by natural organic matter (NOM). This paper firstly summarizes the two factors causing the organic membrane fouling, including molecular weight (MW) and hydrophili...

A study has been conducted to investigate the effect of loading rates on membrane fouling in a moving bed biofilm membrane reactor process for municipal wastewater treatment, especially analysing the fate of submicron colloidal particles and their influence on membrane fouling. Two operating conditions defined as low and high organic loading rates were tested where the development and fate of t...

Microorganisms in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) play important roles on degradation of organic/inorganic substances in wastewaters, while microbial deposition/growth and microbial product accumulation on membranes potentially induce membrane fouling. Generally, there is a need to characterize membrane foulants and to determine their relations to the evolution of membrane fouling in order to ident...