Ultrafiltration of municipal wastewater: study on fouling models and fouling mechanisms

Ultrafiltration (UF) with hollow fiber membranes is a proven membrane technique that can achieve high water quality standards as a tertiary treatment in municipal wastewater treatment plants. However, UF has a major drawback, membrane fouling, which causes losses of productivity and increases operat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Desalination and water treatment 2015-12, Vol.56 (13), p.3427-3437
Main Authors: Soler-Cabezas, J.L., Torà-Grau, M., Vincent-Vela, M.C., Mendoza-Roca, J.A., Martínez-Francisco, F.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Blocking
Fittings
Fouling
Hollow fiber
Membrane processes
Membranes
Modeling
Municipal wastewater
Porosity
Simulated wastewater
Ultrafiltration
Wastewater treatment plants
Water quality standards
Water treatment plants
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Ultrafiltration (UF) with hollow fiber membranes is a proven membrane technique that can achieve high water quality standards as a tertiary treatment in municipal wastewater treatment plants. However, UF has a major drawback, membrane fouling, which causes losses of productivity and increases operation costs. Thus, the aim of this work is to model membrane fouling in the UF of a secondary treatment effluent. The tests were carried out with a model wastewater solution that consisted of bovine serum albumin and dextran. Three different transmembrane pressures and three different crossflow velocities were tested. Several fouling models available in the literature, and new models proposed, were fitted to permeate flux decline experimental data. The models studied by other authors and considered in this study were: Hermia’s models (complete, intermediate, standard pore blocking and gel layer) and Belfort’s model. The new models proposed in this work were: modified Belfort’s model, quadratic exponential model, logarithmic inversed model, double exponential model and tangent inversed model. The fitting accuracy of the models was determined in terms of the R-squared and standard deviation. The results showed that the model that had the higher fitting accuracy was the logarithmic inversed model. Among the Hermia’s models, the model that had the higher fitting accuracy was the intermediate pore blocking model. Therefore, the predominant fouling mechanism was determined and it was the intermediate pore blocking model.
ISSN:1944-3986
1944-3994
1944-3986
DOI:10.1080/19443994.2014.969320