Insights into the roles of membrane pore size and feed foulant concentration in ultrafiltration membrane fouling based on collision‐attachment theory

Abstract

Membrane property and feed characteristics play critical roles in membrane fouling. This paper aims to clarify the roles of membrane pore size (φ) and feed foulant concentration (C b) in ultrafiltration fouling induced by polysaccharides. The fouling behaviors were expounded by collision-attachment theory, where the rate of membrane fouling is mainly determined by collision frequency (JC b) and attachment efficiency (γ). At the initial fouling stage, rapid flux decline was observed at large φ or high C b due to the great JC b and/or γ. At the later fouling stage, there existed a nearly identical maximum stable flux attributing to the same JC b and γ, which was independent of φ and C b. Moreover, the smaller φ can lead to less foulants passed through the membrane and thus more foulants attaching on the membrane, while the higher C b can give rise to more foulants on both the membrane surface and in the permeate. The results presented in current study provide fundamental basis in understanding membrane fouling.

Editorial: April 2021

“…April's issue of Water Environment Research presents new research on topics important to water quality engineers and scientists: biodegradation of hazardous organic compounds (Lee & Ulrich, 2020) and microconstituents (Rao et al, 2020), removal of fluoride (Bilici Baskan & Biyikli, 2020), membrane fouling (Liu et al, 2020), and electrochemical disinfection (Qing et al, 2020), among others. The issue also includes original research on nutrient removal from around the world: the microbial communities involved in anammox from Las Barrillas estuary, Mexico (Ronzón Bravo et al, 2020), impact of COD/TN on anammox for influents simulating those from Vietnam (Nguyen & Tran, 2020), and electrocoagulation for ammonia removal from landfill leachate in Malaysia (Hamid et al, 2020).…”