scholarly journals Engineered Nanoparticles with Decoupled Photocatalysis and Wettability for Membrane-Based Desalination and Separation of Oil-Saline Water Mixtures

Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1397
Author(s):  
Bishwash Shrestha ◽  
Mohammadamin Ezazi ◽  
Gibum Kwon

Membrane-based separation technologies are the cornerstone of remediating unconventional water sources, including brackish and industrial or municipal wastewater, as they are relatively energy-efficient and versatile. However, membrane fouling by dissolved and suspended substances in the feed stream remains a primary challenge that currently prevents these membranes from being used in real practices. Thus, we directly address this challenge by applying a superhydrophilic and oleophobic coating to a commercial membrane surface which can be utilized to separate and desalinate an oil and saline water mixture, in addition to photocatalytically degrading the organic substances. We fabricated the photocatalytic membrane by coating a commercial membrane with an ultraviolet (UV) light-curable adhesive. Then, we sprayed it with a mixture of photocatalytic nitrogen-doped titania (N-TiO2) and perfluoro silane-grafted silica (F-SiO2) nanoparticles. The membrane was placed under a UV light, which resulted in a chemically heterogeneous surface with intercalating high and low surface energy regions (i.e., N-TiO2 and F-SiO2, respectively) that were securely bound to the commercial membrane surface. We demonstrated that the coated membrane could be utilized for continuous separation and desalination of an oil–saline water mixture and for simultaneous photocatalytic degradation of the organic substances adsorbed on the membrane surface upon visible light irradiation.

Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. 653
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Azis ◽  
Marianthi Malioka ◽  
Spyridon Ntougias ◽  
Paraschos Melidis

Use of Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) technology for municipal wastewater treatment has been increased in recent years, as it successfully overcomes the disadvantages of the conventional activated sludge process. Membrane fouling is the major disadvantage of MBRs and leads to decreased membrane performance and expanded operational expenses. In this study, fouling was monitored in a pilot-scale submerged MBR system fed with municipal wastewater. TMP was directly measured on the membrane module during the operation. To control TMP increase owing to biosolids accumulation on membrane surface, successive backwashes and air-cross flow velocity increase were applied. These measures lowered TMP and improved flux.


2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihua Sun ◽  
Ning He ◽  
Xi Duan ◽  
Bingbing Yang ◽  
Cuimin Feng ◽  
...  

Abstract The combined processes of powdered activated carbon/biological powdered activated carbon- ultrafiltration (PAC/BPAC-UF) were used to treat secondary effluent. In this study, the effect of PAC and BPAC on membrane flux, membrane resistance and the removal of different molecular weight organic compounds were investigated. In addition, the structure characteristics of the microorganisms of the BPAC were analyzed. The results showed that the optimum dosage of PAC and BPAC was 10 mg/L and 40 mg/L respectively. The reversible membrane fouling resistance of BPAC-UF was higher than that of PAC-UF, and the two processes had the least irreversible resistance at the best dosage. The biodegradation of BPAC increased the concentration of small molecular weight organic matter up to 10,000 Da in the membrane effluent. So the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal effect of BPAC-UF process worsened. Microorganisms such as Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes and other microorganisms on the surface of the BPAC enhanced the removal of organic matter in water. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) scans showed that there was net mucus membrane on the UF membrane surface before the backwashing of the BPAC-UF process which increased the proportion of reversible pollution resistance. The physical flushing effect of BPAC-UF was better than that of direct UF and PAC-UF processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 233 ◽  
pp. 01049
Author(s):  
YANG Yanqing ◽  
QIU Yan ◽  
LIU Yanhui ◽  
ZHAO Yan ◽  
LI jing ◽  
...  

Ceramic membrane has made rapid progress in industrial/municipal wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment owing to its advantageous properties over conventional polymeric membrane. The ceramic membrane processes are a rapidly emerging technology for water treatment, yet virtually no information on the performance and fouling mechanisms diatomite ceramic membrane. In this study, filtration experiments were carried out using a mixture of humic acid and kaolin which simulated surface water under constant pressure to reveal fouling characteristics of the filtration of the diatomite ceramic membrane. The results showed that the removal rate of VU254 was 52%~70%, and turbidity was 90%~95% when treat mixed water of 5-10mg/L kaolin and humic acid. And membrane surface retention and membrane pore adsorption were the mainly removal routes. And the flux slowly decreases, rapidly decreases, gradually decreases and stabilizes were three processes of diatomite ceramic membrane fouling. And the first and third stages of membrane fouling mainly caused by complete blocking, and the second stage was mainly controlled by standard blocking. The study found that humic acid would cause both the pore blocking and the fouling of the membrane surface when turbidity was present, especially the membrane surface pollution, it was the major factor of diatomite ceramic membrane fouling.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 583
Author(s):  
Yu-Hsuan Chiao ◽  
Arijit Sengupta ◽  
Micah Belle Marie Yap Ang ◽  
Shu-Ting Chen ◽  
Teow Yeit Haan ◽  
...  

Forward osmosis (FO) is an important desalination method to produce potable water. It was also used to treat different wastewater streams, including industrial as well as municipal wastewater. Though FO is environmentally benign, energy intensive, and highly efficient; it still suffers from four types of fouling namely: organic fouling, inorganic scaling, biofouling and colloidal fouling or a combination of these types of fouling. Membrane fouling may require simple shear force and physical cleaning for sufficient recovery of membrane performance. Severe fouling may need chemical cleaning, especially when a slimy biofilm or severe microbial colony is formed. Modification of FO membrane through introducing zwitterionic moieties on the membrane surface has been proven to enhance antifouling property. In addition, it could also significantly improve the separation efficiency and longevity of the membrane. Zwitterion moieties can also incorporate in draw solution as electrolytes in FO process. It could be in a form of a monomer or a polymer. Hence, this review comprehensively discussed several methods of inclusion of zwitterionic moieties in FO membrane. These methods include atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP); second interfacial polymerization (SIP); coating and in situ formation. Furthermore, an attempt was made to understand the mechanism of improvement in FO performance by zwitterionic moieties. Finally, the future prospective of the application of zwitterions in FO has been discussed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Yeo ◽  
N. Jang ◽  
J. Cho ◽  
K.-S. Kim ◽  
I.S. Kim

In a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process containing a variety of bacteria, the bacterial adhesion to the membrane surface, prior to cake formation, causes an increased filtration resistance. In this study, Pseudomonas fluorescens, commonly found in the municipal wastewater treatment process with activated sludge, was used to show the effects of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) on bacterial adhesion to the membrane surface in the MBR. Of the various roles of EPS in promoting membrane fouling, the adhesion of bacteria to the membrane surface was calculated using the specific cake resistance (α, m/kg). Although the amount of EPS binding with bacteria was increased by the addition of Ca2 + , there was no significant effect on the bacterial growth. The results of the particle size distribution showed that the addition of Ca2 +  increased flocculation, allowing the formation of a complex with the bacteria and EPS. In order to identify the effects of the addition of Ca2 +  on the hydrophobicity, the contact angle was also measured. The result showed that the addition of Ca2 +  showed no significant differences in the hydrophobicity, even though there was an increase in flocculation. With the bacteria containing a higher EPS concentration, a higher specific cake resistance was observed. From the results of the adhesion experiment, which was conducted with various EPS levels, displayed as the COD and TOC concentration, an increased EPS concentration was shown to promote bacterial adhesion to the membrane surface.


2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 215-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.R. Costa ◽  
M.N. de Pinho

Membrane fouling by natural organic matter (NOM), namely by humic substances (HS), is a major problem in water treatment for drinking water production using membrane processes. Membrane fouling is dependent on membrane morphology like pore size and on water characteristics namely NOM nature. This work addresses the evaluation of the efficiency of ultrafiltration (UF) and Coagulation/Flocculation/UF performance in terms of permeation fluxes and HS removal, of the water from Tagus River (Valada). The operation of coagulation with chitosan was evaluated as a pretreatment for minimization of membrane fouling. UF experiments were carried out in flat cells of 13.2×10−4 m2 of membrane surface area and at transmembrane pressures from 1 to 4 bar. Five cellulose acetate membranes were laboratory made to cover a wide range of molecular weight cut-off (MWCO): 2,300, 11,000, 28,000, 60,000 and 75,000 Da. Severe fouling is observed for the membranes with the highest cut-off. In the permeation experiments of raw water, coagulation prior to membrane filtration led to a significant improvement of the permeation performance of the membranes with the highest MWCO due to the particles and colloidal matter removal.


Membranes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 380
Author(s):  
Yan Chen ◽  
Huiping Li ◽  
Weihai Pang ◽  
Baiqin Zhou ◽  
Tian Li ◽  
...  

Nanofiltration (NF) is a promising post-treatment technology for providing high-quality drinking water. However, membrane fouling remains a challenge to long-term NF in providing high-quality drinking water. Herein, we found that coupling pre-treatments (sand filtration (SF) and ozone–biological activated carbon (O3-BAC)) and NF is a potent tactic against membrane fouling while achieving high-quality drinking water. The pilot results showed that using SF+O3-BAC pre-treated water as the feed water resulted in a lower but a slowly rising transmembrane pressure (TMP) in NF post-treatment, whereas an opposite observation was found when using SF pre-treated water as the feed water. High-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) and three-dimensional excitation–emission matrix (3D-EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy determined that the O3-BAC process changed the characteristic of dissolved organic matter (DOM), probably by removing the DOM of lower apparent molecular weight (LMW) and decreasing the biodegradability of water. Moreover, amino acids and tyrosine-like substances which were significantly related to medium and small molecule organics were found as the key foulants to membrane fouling. In addition, the accumulation of powdered activated carbon in O3-BAC pre-treated water on the membrane surface could be the key reason protecting the NF membrane from fouling.


Membranes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shailesh Dangwal ◽  
Ruochen Liu ◽  
Lyndon D. Bastatas ◽  
Elena Echeverria ◽  
Chengqian Huang ◽  
...  

ZnO was deposited on macroporous α-alumina membranes via atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve water flux by increasing their hydrophilicity and reducing mass transfer resistance through membrane pore channels. The deposition of ZnO was systemically performed for 4–128 cycles of ALD at 170 °C. Analysis of membrane surface by contact angles (CA) measurements revealed that the hydrophilicity of the ZnO ALD membrane was enhanced with increasing the number of ALD cycles. It was observed that a vacuum-assisted ‘flow-through’ evaporation method had significantly higher efficacy in comparison to conventional desalination methods. By using the vacuum-assisted ‘flow-through’ technique, the water flux of the ZnO ALD membrane (~170 L m−2 h−1) was obtained, which is higher than uncoated pristine membranes (92 L m−2 h−1). It was also found that ZnO ALD membranes substantially improved water flux while keeping excellent salt rejection rate (>99.9%). Ultrasonic membrane cleaning had considerable effect on reducing the membrane fouling.


2018 ◽  
Vol 156 ◽  
pp. 08003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tutuk Djoko Kusworo ◽  
Danny Soetrisnanto ◽  
Cynthia Santoso ◽  
Tyas Dwi Payanti ◽  
Dani Puji Utomo

Produced water is a wastewater generated from petroleum industry with high concentration of pollutants such as Total Dissolved Solid, Organic content, and Oil and grease. Membrane technology has been currently applied for produced water treatment due to its efficiency, compact, mild and clean process. The main problem of produced water using membrane is fouling on the membrane surface which causes on low permeate productivity. This paper is majority focused on the improvement of anti-fouling performance through several modifications to increase CA membrane hydrophilicity. The membrane was prepared by formulating the dope solution consists of 18 wt-% CA polymer, acetone, and PEG additive (3 wt-%, 5 wt-%, and 7 wt-%). The membranes are casted using NIPS method and being irradiated under UV light exposure. The SEM images show that parepared membrane has asymmetric structure consist of dense layer, intermediete layer, and finger-like support layer. The filtration test shows that PEG addition increase the membrane hydrophilicity and the permeate flux increases. UV light exposure on the membrane improves the membrane stability and hydrophilicity. The imrpovement of membrane anti-fouling performance is essential to achieve the higher productivity without lowering its pollutants rejection.


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