Membrane fouling characteristics and mitigation in a coagulation-assisted microfiltration process for municipal wastewater pretreatment

Huang, Bao-Cheng; Guan, Yan-Fang; Chen, Wei; Yu, Han‐Qing

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2017.06.080

Cited by 76 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…3 shows that particles with diameters below 10 μ m most substantially contributed to foulant accumulation on the membrane surface. Other experiments also confirmed that particles with diameters of this size (< 10 μ m) are the most important membrane foulants [39]. It should be noted that the results shown in Fig.…”

Section: Effect Of Particle Diameter On the Accumulated Cake Mass On supporting

confidence: 61%

Impact of adding aluminum hydroxyl chloride on membrane flux in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Yang

Spanjers

Lier

2020

Journal of Water Process Engineering

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Coagulant addition and improved mixing conditions have been used in anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR) to improve membrane performance. Before coagulant was added, a flux of 8 L/m 2 h was applicable and transmembrane pressure (TMP) increased from 1 kPa to 10 kPa in 5 days. However, after the coagulant was added, a flux as high as 50 L/m 2 h was achieved with no noticeable increase in TMP during six hours of operation. Furthermore, at the same high flux, a long-term experiment showed that TMP increased to approximately 3 kPa in 20 days. Apparently, the applied coagulant significantly improved membrane performance. The reduction in the number of small particles was identified as the main cause for the high flux. However, the number of submicon particles increased in the long-term experiment. In addition, a model was developed that adequately described the TMP development in the short-term and long-term experiments. According to this model, the deterioration in specific cake resistance resulted in a sharp TMP increase in the long-term experiment. In addition, experiments showed that the effect of coagulant on sludge activity was minimal. This study demonstrated that the applied coagulant and reactor operation conditions (mixing properties) have potentials of interest for improving the membrane flux in AnMBR.

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Section: Effect Of Particle Diameter On the Accumulated Cake Mass On supporting

confidence: 61%

Impact of adding aluminum hydroxyl chloride on membrane flux in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Yang

Spanjers

Lier

2020

Journal of Water Process Engineering

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“…Therefore, the results from previous research suggest that colloidal and soluble organic matter removal might have a higher impact on fouling mitigation than increasing floc size. Accordingly, researchers have consistently identified colloidal material as a major factor in reversible fouling in membrane bioreactors [ 3 , 19 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. High colloidal concentrations increase the fouling rate by cake layer formation, pore blocking, and decreasing cake layer porosity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fouling Mitigation by Cationic Polymer Addition into a Pilot-Scale Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Fed with Blackwater

Odriozola

Morales²,

Vázquez-Padín³

et al. 2020

Polymers

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Cationic polymers have proven to be suitable flux enhancers (FEs) in large-scale aerobic membrane bioreactors (MBRs), whereas in anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) research is scarce, and so far, only done at lab‐scale. Results from MBRs cannot be directly translated to AnMBRs because the extent and nature of membrane fouling under anaerobic and aerobic conditions are different. Our research focused on the long-term effect of dosing the cationic polymer Adifloc KD451 to a pilot AnMBR, fed with source‐separated domestic blackwater. A single dosage of Adifloc KD451 at 50 mg L−1 significantly enhanced the filtration performance in the AnMBR, revealed by a decrease in both fouling rate and total filtration resistance. Nevertheless, FE addition had an immediate negative effect on the specific methanogenic activity (SMA), but this was a reversible process that had no adverse effect on permeate quality or chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal in the AnMBR. Moreover, the FE had a long‐term positive effect on AnMBR filtration performance and sludge filterability. These findings indicate that dosing Adifloc KD451 is a suitable strategy for fouling mitigation in AnMBRs because it led to a long‐term improvement in filtration performance, while having no significant adverse effects on permeate quality or COD removal.

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“…Different types of inorganic (Al2(SO4)3 and FeCl3) and organic (polyacrylamide) coagulants have been attempted for lab-scale direct MF/ UF of municipal wastewater (Gong et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2017;Jin et al, 2016;Jin et al, 2017). The research findings highlighted that the use of all tested coagulants in direct MF/ UF processes led to an increase in membrane performance, compared to those without coagulants.…”

Section: Integration With Coagulation/ Adsorptionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Shifting such irreversible fouling to cake layer fouling could be achieved by adding coagulants into the feed water, aiming to build greater-sized flocs (i.e., decreasing dissolved and colloidal substances). Such flocs tend to form a cake layer on the MF/ UF membrane surface, which could be readily removed by proper physical cleaning (Huang et al, 2017). In addition, coagulation/ flocculation also performed roles in enhancing retention of smaller-sized soluble organics, nutrients, micropollutants by promoting particle formation, which allowed improving permeate quality to meet stricter discharge or reuse standards (Hey et al, 2018).…”

Section: Integration With Coagulation/ Adsorptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct membrane filtration for wastewater treatment and resource recovery: A review

Hube

Eskafi

Hrafnkelsdóttir

et al. 2020

Science of The Total Environment

404

110

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Direct membrane filtration (DMF) of municipal wastewater offers an alternative solution for centralized and decentralized wastewater treatment in Iceland. The efficiency of biologicalbased wastewater treatment is restricted in Iceland, due to low temperatures and high wastewater inflow rates with extremely low concentration of organics. This study aims to investigate membrane fouling mechanisms and mitigation approaches during DMF of municipal wastewater. The DMF experiments were performed using a crossflow flat sheet membrane filtration cell integrated with an optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system. The effects of membrane material, operation conditions and cleaning protocol on DMF performance and foulant composition were examined. The threshold flux testing results indicated that a PVDF membrane (0.08 μm) was suitable for DMF of wastewater. Increasing crossflow velocity, physical flushing frequency and flushing water temperature contributed greatly to mitigate fouling. During a continuous DMF process, reversible fouling was predominant, while during intermittent DMF with periodical physical cleaning, irreversible/ irremovable fouling was dominant. A possible shift of tightly attached cake layer to irreversible/ irremovable fouling was revealed by the direct observation of fouling via OCT. The foulants autopsy indicated that a combination of organic and inorganic foulants was attributed to membrane fouling, instead of biological fouling. Under the optimized filtration condition, sustainable long-term DMF operation (~230 h) was achieved by employing a combination of periodical physical flushing with chemical-enhanced flushing. The water quality analysis showed that the DMF process could efficiently remove solids and greater-sized soluble organics, allowing the treated water to meet wastewater discharge standards.

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Membrane fouling characteristics and mitigation in a coagulation-assisted microfiltration process for municipal wastewater pretreatment

Cited by 76 publications

References 30 publications

Impact of adding aluminum hydroxyl chloride on membrane flux in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Impact of adding aluminum hydroxyl chloride on membrane flux in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Fouling Mitigation by Cationic Polymer Addition into a Pilot-Scale Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Fed with Blackwater

Direct membrane filtration for wastewater treatment and resource recovery: A review

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