Using magnetic powder to enhance coagulation membrane filtration for treating micro-polluted surface water

The magnetic enhanced coagulation membrane filtration (MECMF) process was introduced into micro-polluted surface water treatment. The process was conducted by adding magnetic powder (MP) for enhancing coagulation. By contrasting the water quality parameters including dissolved organic carbon (DOC), UV₂₅₄ and turbidity of permeates of MECMF and coagulation/flocculation membrane filtration (CFMF), results showed that the removal efficiency in the MECMF process was higher than those in the CFMF process. According to normalized flux and resistance analysis, membrane flux declined relatively slow and irreversible fouling resistance was lesser in the MECMF process. By analyzing the three-dimensional fluorescence of permeates and raw water, it was clearly shown that the permeate quality of the MECMF process was superior to that of the CFMF process apparently, which highlighted the removal of protein-like substances was more effectively in MECMF. Furthermore, the addition of MP could provide Lorentz and magnetic dipole forces between colloidal matters during coagulation, leading to the increase of collision frequency and efficiency and the formation of large size flocs with high fractal dimension. Large and high fractal dimension flocs could form a porous cake layer, which could increase water permeability. On the basic of the above findings, it was suggested that magnetic-enhanced coagulation that promoted flocs to develop could regulate cake layer structure and mitigate membrane fouling to some extent.