Bench-scale analysis of ultrafiltration membranes for investigating fouling by natural organic matter in surface water

Bench-scale systems, if properly designed, can become a valuable tool to evaluate fouling in dead-end ultrafiltration systems. The purpose of this study was to design and build a bench-scale hollow fiber ultrafiltration system to examine the effect of operational parameters and chemical pretreatment on membrane performance.;For this research, a bench-scale hollow fiber ultrafiltration system that operates at constant flux and includes a backwash cycle was designed and built. The system was also designed to be used as a tool in the evaluation of critical flux for source waters.;The study demonstrated that shorter operating time between backwash cycles resulted in reduced membrane fouling, improved backwash efficiency and natural organic matter rejection. The study also indicated that fouling rate increased with increase flux while backwash efficiency decreased with increasing operating flux. Chemically pretreated ORW showed superb reduction in normalized specific flux decline when compared with uncoagulated ORW.