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Membrane Water Treatment Volume 9, Number 5, September 2018 , pages 373-383 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/mwt.2018.9.5.373 |
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Fouling behaviours of two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system applied to palm oil mill effluent treatment |
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Yeit Haan Teow, Zhong Huo Wong, Mohd Sobri Takriff and Abdul Wahab Mohammad
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| Abstract | ||
| Fouling by solids and microorganisms is the major obstacle limiting the efficient use of membrane wastewater treatment. In our previous study, two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was proposed to treat anaerobic digested palm oil mill effluent (AnPOME). This two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system had showed great potential for the treatment of AnPOME with high removal of COD, NH3-N, PO43-, TSS, turbidity, and colour. However, fouling behavior of the membrane in this two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was still unknown. In this study, empirical models that describe permeate flux decline for dead-end filtration (pore blocking - complete, intermediate, and standard; and cake layer formation) presented by Hermia were used to fit the experimental results in identifying the fouling mechanism under different experimental conditions. Both centrifuged and non-centrifuged samples were taken from the medium with 3 days RT intervals, from day 0 to day 12 to study their influence on fouling mechanisms described by Hermia for ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) filtration mode. Besides, a more detailed study on the use of resistance-in-series model for dead-end filtration was done to investigate the fouling mechanisms involved in membrane filtration of AnPOME collected after microalgae treatment. The results showed that fouling of UF and NF membrane was mainly caused by cake layer formation and it was also supported by the analysis for resistance-in-series model. Whereas, fouling of RO membrane was dominated by concentration polarization. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| membrane process; fouling; Hermia | ||
| Address | ||
| Yeit Haan Teow, Mohd Sobri Takriff and Abdul Wahab Mohammad: Research Centre for Sustainable Process Technology (CESPRO), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia Zhong Huo Wong: Chemical Engineering Programme, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia | ||
