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Use of Chemical Coagulants to Control Fouling Potential for Wastewater Membrane Bioreactor Processes
Author(s) -
Fan Fengshen,
Zhou Hongde,
Husain Hadi
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
water environment research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1554-7531
pISSN - 1061-4303
DOI - 10.2175/106143007x194329
Subject(s) - membrane fouling , fouling , membrane bioreactor , chemistry , ultrafiltration (renal) , filtration (mathematics) , membrane , alum , wastewater , coagulation , chromatography , bioreactor , ferric , chemical oxygen demand , flocculation , pulp and paper industry , chloride , permeation , membrane technology , chemical engineering , environmental engineering , inorganic chemistry , environmental science , organic chemistry , psychology , biochemistry , statistics , mathematics , psychiatry , engineering
Chemical coagulation with ferric chloride, alum, and an organic polymer were used to control the fouling potential of mixed liquors for submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes in treating municipal wastewater. Their filterability was evaluated using a submerged hollow fiber ultrafiltration apparatus operated in constant permeate flux mode. The collected transmembrane pressures over filtration time were used to calculate the membrane fouling rates. The results showed that coagulation pretreatment can reduce fouling rates when MBRs were operated above the critical flux. Even though coagulation with the organic polymer formed larger mixed liquor suspended solids particles and had shorter time‐to‐filtration than those with ferric chloride and alum, the filterability for membrane filtration were similar, indicating that the membrane fouling in MBR systems was mainly controlled by the concentration of smaller colloidal particles.