Abstract
Fundamental understanding on the fouling mechanism is critical to improve filtration operation. The performance of four parallel MBRs with different SRT was monitored during long-term constant flowrate filtration. Characteristics of the membrane and transmembrane pressure (TMP) profiles obtained were studied to demonstrate the fouling mechanisms. The capacity of both classical blocking models and their combined models was evaluated. The intermediate model provided a very good agreement with all the TMP data. However, the combined cake-intermediate and intermediate-standard model were more effective in the description of the experimental data. The contributions analysis indicated that the cake, intermediate and standard blocking model were the dominant fouling mechanisms. SEM-EDX observation showed that the cake blocking of organic and standard blocking of inorganic had the main contributions to membrane fouling. The combined cake-intermediate and intermediate-standard models may be applicable to systems where these two models are consistent with the experimentally observed fouling mechanisms in MBR.
- blocking laws
- fouling mechanism
- MBR
- TMP
- First received 15 May 2017.
- Accepted in revised form 6 October 2017.
- © IWA Publishing 2017