Empirical modeling of uf membrane fouling in removal of organic matters from surface water
Abstract
Fouling due to organic matters from surface water has been always of concerns as it affects the water production and membrane lifespan. It's the fouling that hinders the wide application of membrane technology in water treatment field. This study aims to investigate the fouling mechanism, which mostly impacts the water permeability via empirical modeling. Normally, there are four different physical-based types of fouling: complete blocking, intermediate blocking, cake filtration and standard blocking or adsorption. It was revealed that fouling by organic matters on ultrafiltration membranes’ surfaces behaved like loose nanofiltration membranes, which mostly involved in intermediate or complete pore blocking. A combined cake formation and pore constriction model simulated even better the fouling mechanism for those tested membranes. The nature of membrane surface characteristics including roughness or hydrophobicity influenced the fouling to some certain extent.
Keywords: Empirical modeling, fouling, ultrafiltration membrane, surface water treatment.
Received: August 30th, 2017; revised: September 15th, 2017; accepted: November 2nd, 2017
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