Use of Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Microfiltration Membranes to Remove Microorganisms and Organic Pollutants from Primary Effluents

Abstract

Primary‐effluent wastewater from the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (Pennsylvania) was used as a surrogate for combined‐sewer‐overflow waters contained in the sewershed. Pathogens contained in combined‐primary‐effluent wastewaters or combined‐sewer overflows (CSOs) may pose a human‐health threat to those coming in contact with such receiving waters. Polymeric ultra‐ and nano‐membranes can be used to capture these microorganisms from CSOs. This research investigates the ability of polymeric hydrophobic and hydrophilic membranes, ranging in pore size from 0.2 to 0.8 μm, to remove pathogen‐indicator organisms (Escherichia coli, enterococcus, and fecal coliforms). Membranes, with pore size 0.45 μm and smaller, were able to reduce the bacteria levels to nondetectable levels, with the sole exception of one membrane with pore size 0.3 μm.

Concentration polarisation in tubular membranes —a numerical approach

“…For an incompressible concentration layer the porosity and resistance are independent of the imposed pressure [21]. The value of rc can be estimated using the Carmen-Kozeny equation:…”

“…For a rigid spherical of average diameter, ap, the specific surface area is Sc = 6/ap, e c is the porosity of the concentration layer (for a randomly packed cake it is approximately 0.4) and the constant K is reported to have a value of 5.0 for laminar flow through the layer [21].…”

Effects of Different Concentrations of Palm Oil Effluent (POME) on the Germination of Seed of Glycine max L. and Abelmoschus esculentus L.

“…This shows that POME can have both positive and negative effects on crop performance. POME has a high nutrient content, and large oil palm plantations prefer to use it directly as fertilizer (Modise et al, 2006). The application of palm oil mill effluent was reported to increase the growth of maize (Ogboi et al, 2010) while The growth and germination inhibitions of different vegetables after POME application to the soil was observed by Radziah (2001).…”

Fate of pathogen indicators in a domestic blend of food waste and wastewater through a two-stage anaerobic digestion system

“…Previous studies have repeatedly shown that E. coli and C. perfringens are rejected by microfilters with pore sizes of 0.45 |im or less to an extent that those indicators are not detectable in the filtrate (Judd & Till 2000;Alonso et al 2001;Oota et al 2005;Modise et al 2006). A number of previous studies have also shown that microfiltration is effective at removing coliphage and other viruses from wastewater despite the small size of these particles (Winnen et al 1996;Alonso et al 2001;Oota et al 2005;Zheng et al 2005;Lv et al 2006;Zhang & Farahbakhsh 2007).…”