title: Fouling and cleaning of microfiltration membrane in municipal wastewater reclamation.
abstract: This paper presents an investigation on fouling and cleaning of a tubular microfiltration membrane for municipal wastewater reclamation. A bi-level complex model, namely channel clogging and pore plugging, was introduced to elucidate the fouling mechanism. Based on 135 days of microfiltration of activated sludge, a preventive method for channel clogging was reasonably proposed and proven to be effective. Without channel clogging, the operation period was observed a five-fold increase on average, reaching 3-4 weeks. To remove pore plugging, a multi-step chemical cleaning was employed and further optimized in terms of temperature and alkaline concentration. Generally, the chemical cleaning could restore the membrane permeability to higher than 90%.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Technology Institute, Innovation Center, Blk 2, Unit 237, 18 Nanyang Drive, 637723 Singapore. chxing@eti.org.sg
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: P S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Klose
authors.forename: X Q
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D018441:Biofilms; D002947:Cities; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005374:Filtration; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D010539:Permeability; D012722:Sewage; D013696:Temperature; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D012722:Sewage