This paper presents the results of an investigation on the effects of concentration of cations on activated sludge properties and membrane fouling in submerge membrane bioreactors. The working volume of the experimental setup was two liters. The cellulose acetate membrane was immersed in the bioreactor. The flocculability, settling properties and fouling propensity of activated sludge was measu...

The modern challenges for membrane separations in a wide range of processes require more sophisticated approaches for the detection and remediation of fouling, i.e., the association of solutes, particulate matter, and colloids on and/or within a membrane. Most commonly, fouling is assessed from inferred measurements of permeation rate and/or permeate quality. The use of acoustic techniques for ...

This paper describes the characterization and evaluation of various RO/NF membranes for the treatment of seasonally brackish surface water with high organic contents (TOC ≈21 mg/L). Twenty commercially available RO and NF membranes were initially evaluated by performing controlled bench-scale flat-sheet tests and surface characterization. Based on the results, four low pressure RO membranes wer...

Three critical aspects of searching for and understanding how to find highly resistant surfaces to protein adhesion are addressed here with specific application to synthetic membrane filtration. They include the (i) discovery of a series of previously unreported monomers from a large library of monomers with high protein resistance and subsequent low fouling characteristics for membrane ultrafi...

This paper deals with the time-optimal operation and parameter estimation problem of a general diafiltration process in the presence of fouling. Fouling stands for one of the dominant problems in the membrane separation processes. The dynamic behavior of the fouled membrane is described by a general fouling model taken from literature. An Extended Kalman filter is proposed for the recursive est...

Membrane fouling during particle filtration occurs through a variety of mechanisms, including internal pore clogging by contaminants, coverage of pore entrances, and deposition on the membrane surface. Each of these fouling mechanisms results in a decline in the observed flow rate over time, and the decrease in filtration efficiency can be characterized by a unique signature formed by plotting ...

In this study, neat HDPE and HDPE/PE-g-MA/EVA blend membranes were fabricated via thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) method and their fouling behaviors were examined using filtration of BSA protein. Membranes were characterized using FESEM, AFM, ATR-FTIR analyses and porosity measurement. Fouling behavior of membranes was analyzed using the resistance-in-series (RIS), classic and combine...

In this paper, we deal with the model-based time-optimal operation of a batch diafiltration process in the presence of membrane fouling. Membrane fouling poses one of the major problems in the field of membrane processes. We model the fouling behavior and estimate its parameters using various methods. Least-squares, least-squares with a moving horizon, recursive least-squares methods and the ex...

The effect of backwash frequency (15, 30 and 60 min) and influent flux (3.75, 7.50 and 11.25 L/h/m) on fouling amelioration in an innovative external side-stream dead-end microfiltration anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) for the treatment of domestic wastewater at 25EC was investigated. During 6 months of reactor operation, a constant COD removal of 88% and an accumulation of 350 mg TSS/L/d...

This study compared membrane fouling in a sponge-submerged membrane bioreactor (SSMBR) and a conventional membrane bioreactor (CMBR) based on sludge properties when treating synthetic domestic wastewater. In the CMBR, soluble microbial products (SMP) in activated sludge were a major contributor for initial membrane fouling and presented higher concentration in membrane cake layer. Afterwards, m...