Factors Influencing Biofouling and Use of Polymeric Materials to Mitigate It

Polymer functionalization of inorganic nanoparticles for biomedical applications

“…To avoid this, hydrophilic polymers impart NP surfaces with a hydration layer, which can limit fouling and improve NP stability. For a precise description of the mechanisms of how hydrophilic polymers limit fouling we recommend the recent works of Zhang et al and Ozello et al [22,23].…”

Current Advances in Biofouling Mitigation in Membranes for Water Treatment: An Overview

“…In particular, this phenomenon contributes to a decrease in the permeation rates [10]. The steps of biofilm formation are depicted in Figure 2 [11]. Initially, proteins are fundamentally important factors in developing biofouling due to the fact that a protein layer provides an optimum environment for microbial colonization.…”

“…As it is well-known, proteins are composed by amino acids, which possess several functional groups, such as carboxyl, amino and methyl groups. Such functional groups provide a specific hydrophilic or hydrophobic nature to the proteins, and thus, the retention of microorganisms on the membrane occurs through diverse intramolecular forces, such as van der Waals forces, hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonding, among others [11]. Furthermore, different types of fouling may occur during a filtration process depending on multiple factors, including the physico-chemical composition of the feed solution (including pH, nature, etc.…”

“…It has been established that biofouling contributes to over 45% of membrane fouling [10]. Microfouling originated by unicellular or pluricellular microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast, or fungi, that may form a complex biofilm by mono-species or multi-species, while macrofouling was associated with bigger or visible organisms [11].…”

Nitric oxide–secreting probiotics as sustainable bio-cleaners for reverse osmosis membrane systems

“…The most crucial constituent responsible for biofouling includes microorganisms and macro-organisms, with their continuous growth and aggregation (Nguyen et al 2012;Ozzello et al 2017;Pal et al 2018a). Most importantly, bacteria are the primary reason for biofouling as they compete to colonize nearly on any surface under extreme conditions like temperature (− 12 °C to 110 °C) and pH (0.5 to 13) (Dhanasekaran et al 2009;Qureshi et al 2013).…”