Cake porosity analysis using 1D–3D fractal dimensions in coagulation–microfiltration of NOM

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 740-746
Author(s):  
G. S. Raspati ◽  
T. O. Leiknes

Fouling during coagulation–ceramic microfiltration of natural organic matter was investigated. Two process configurations (inline coagulation (IC) and tank coagulation (TC)) and two process conditions (types of coagulants–aluminum-based PAX and iron-based PIX–and G-values) were studied. The rate of irreversible fouling corresponding to the increase of initial transmembrane pressure after backwash of IC-PAX was lowest followed by TC-PAX and TC-PIX, while the performance of IC-PIX was found worst. The 1D and 2D fractal analysis revealed that flocs from IC were morphologically different from those of TC, leading to different filtration characteristics. The 3D fractal analysis revealed two groups of morphologically similar flocs: one led to successful filtration experiments, whereas the other led to unsuccessful ones. Cake porosity was found dependent on the floc morphology. Thus, such an approach was found complementary with fouling analysis by means of a membrane fouling model and minimization of fouling phenomenon was achieved by combining the two approaches.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vedat Uyak ◽  
Muge Akdagli ◽  
Mehmet Cakmakci ◽  
Ismail Koyuncu

The objective of this study was to investigate powdered activated carbon (PAC) contribution to natural organic matter (NOM) removal by a submerged MF and UF hybrid systems. It was found that filtration of surface waters by a bare MF and UF membranes removed negligible TOC; by contrast, significant amounts of TOC were removed when daily added PAC particles were predeposited on the membrane surfaces. These results support the assumption that the membranes surface properties and PAC layer structure might have considerably influential factor on NOM removal. Moreover, it was concluded that the dominant removal mechanism of hybrid membrane system is adsorption of NOM within PAC layer rather than size exclusion of NOM by both of membrane pores. Transmembrane pressure (TMP) increases with PAC membrane systems support the view that PAC adsorption pretreatment will not prevent the development of membrane pressure; on the contrary, PAC particles themselves caused membrane fouling by blocking the entrance of pores of MF and UF membranes. Although all three source waters have similar HPI content, it appears that the PAC interaction with the entrance of membrane pores was responsible for offsetting the NOM fractional effects on membrane fouling for these source waters.


2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Makdissy ◽  
J.-P. Croué ◽  
G. Amy ◽  
H. Buisson

This research focused on membrane flux decline trends observed during ultrafiltration (UF) of solutions of NOM fractions isolated from surface waters. All filtration experiments were performed with a non-stirred dead-end cell unit equipped with flat sheet polyethersulfone PES UF membrane coupons under a constant transmembrane pressure of 1 bar. Results showed that the most significant flux decline was due to the organic colloid fraction, a hydrophilic fraction consisting mostly of bacterial cell wall residues. This research demonstrated that these colloids which incorporate 2/3 of dissolved organic structures (<0.45 μm) and 1/3 of particulate organics exert strong fouling properties due to both rejection phenomena and the adsorption mechanism. The fouling contribution by humic-like materials depends on their origin and nature. Aromaticity appears to be a secondary parameter which influences membrane fouling. Polysaccharides, proteins and amino sugars also largely present in humic-like structures (supramolecular structure) play an important role in UF membrane fouling. The perspective of NOM as a biopolymer mixture can contribute to an understanding of membrane fouling.


2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.R. Gray ◽  
C.B. Ritchie ◽  
B.A. Bolto

The membrane fouling characteristics of natural organic matter (NOM) were assessed using single polypropylene hollow fibre membranes of pore size 0.2 μm. The membranes were liquid backwashed every 30 minutes and filtration runs of up to 48 hours (≤8 litres) were conducted. The NOM samples were fractionated into different chemical classes based on their adsorption properties. For the two waters investigated, the hydrophobic components were the major foulant for one water, and the hydrophilics were the major foulant for the other. Interaction between the strongly hydrophobic and weakly hydrophobic fractions was significant for one water, but the extent of interaction between these fractions was minor for the other. The long term membrane fouling characteristics could not always be deduced from short term fouling trials.


Membranes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lelum Manamperuma ◽  
Eilen Vik ◽  
Mark Benjamin ◽  
Zhenxiao Cai ◽  
Jostein Skjefstad

Irreversible fouling of water filtration membranes reduces filter longevity and results in higher costs associated with membrane maintenance and premature replacement. The search for effective pretreatment methods to remove foulants that tend to irreversibly foul membranes is ongoing. In this study, a novel adsorbent (Heated Aluminum Oxide Particles (HAOPs)) was deployed in a fully automated pilot system to remove natural organic matter (NOM) from the surface water source used at the UniVann water treatment plant (WTP) in Ullensaker County, Norway. The pilot plant treatment process consists of passing the water through a thin layer of HAOPs that has been deposited on a mesh support. The HAOPs layer acts as an active packed bed which removes NOM from the water. Fluxes around 120 L/m2/h (LMH) at transmembrane pressure (TMP) below 10.7 psi (0.7 bar) were achieved over production cycles excessing 12 h. Treatment achieved always >85% colour removal and effluent colour <5 mg Pt/L (the target of treatment), and always <0.01 NTU turbidity and non-detectable suspended solids in the permeate. The HAOPs mixture after saturated with NOM is easy to remove by disruption of the HAOPs by rinsing the mesh surface, and the sludge is easily dewatered to higher of dry solids content.


TAPPI Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
WANHEE IM ◽  
HAK LAE LEE ◽  
HYE JUNG YOUN ◽  
DONGIL SEO

Preflocculation of filler particles before their addition to pulp stock provides the most viable and practical solution to increase filler content while minimizing strength loss. The characteristics of filler flocs, such as floc size and structure, have a strong influence on preflocculation efficiency. The influence of flocculant systems on the structural characteristics of filler flocs was examined using a mass fractal analysis method. Mass fractal dimensions of filler flocs under high shear conditions were obtained using light diffraction spectroscopy for three different flocculants. A single polymer (C-PAM), a dual cationic polymer (p-DADMAC/C-PAM) and a C-PAM/micropolymer system were used as flocculants, and their effects on handsheet properties were investigated. The C-PAM/micropolymer system gave the greatest improvement in tensile index. The mass fractal analysis showed that this can be attributed to the formation of highly dense and spherical flocs by this flocculant. A cross-sectional analysis of the handsheets showed that filler flocs with more uniform size were formed when a C-PAM/micropolymer was used. The results suggest that a better understanding of the characteristics of preflocculated fillers and their influence on the properties of paper can be gained based on a fractal analysis.


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 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 553
Author(s):  
Dimitra C. Banti ◽  
Manassis Mitrakas ◽  
Petros Samaras

A promising solution for membrane fouling reduction in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) could be the adjustment of operating parameters of the MBR, such as hydraulic retention time (HRT), food/microorganisms (F/M) loading and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, aiming to modify the sludge morphology to the direction of improvement of the membrane filtration. In this work, these parameters were investigated in a step-aerating pilot MBR that treated municipal wastewater, in order to control the filamentous population. When F/M loading in the first aeration tank (AT1) was ≤0.65 ± 0.2 g COD/g MLSS/d at 20 ± 3 °C, DO = 2.5 ± 0.1 mg/L and HRT = 1.6 h, the filamentous bacteria were controlled effectively at a moderate filament index of 1.5–3. The moderate population of filamentous bacteria improved the membrane performance, leading to low transmembrane pressure (TMP) at values ≤2 kPa for a great period, while at the control MBR the TMP gradually increased reaching 14 kPa. Soluble microbial products (SMP), were also maintained at low concentrations, contributing additionally to the reduction of ΤΜP. Finally, the step-aerating MBR process and the selected imposed operating conditions of HRT, F/M and DO improved the MBR performance in terms of fouling control, facilitating its future wider application.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1931-1957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Tiňo ◽  
Barbara Hammer

We have recently shown that when initialized with “small” weights, recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with standard sigmoid-type activation functions are inherently biased toward Markov models; even prior to any training, RNN dynamics can be readily used to extract finite memory machines (Hammer & Tiňo, 2002; Tiňo, Čerňanský, &Beňušková, 2002a, 2002b). Following Christiansen and Chater (1999), we refer to this phenomenon as the architectural bias of RNNs. In this article, we extend our work on the architectural bias in RNNs by performing a rigorous fractal analysis of recurrent activation patterns. We assume the network is driven by sequences obtained by traversing an underlying finite-state transition diagram&a scenario that has been frequently considered in the past, for example, when studying RNN-based learning and implementation of regular grammars and finite-state transducers. We obtain lower and upper bounds on various types of fractal dimensions, such as box counting and Hausdorff dimensions. It turns out that not only can the recurrent activations inside RNNs with small initial weights be explored to build Markovian predictive models, but also the activations form fractal clusters, the dimension of which can be bounded by the scaled entropy of the underlying driving source. The scaling factors are fixed and are given by the RNN parameters.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Molnar ◽  
J. Agbaba ◽  
A. Tubić ◽  
M. Watson ◽  
M. Kragulj ◽  
...  

This work investigates the effects of ultraviolet (UV)/H2O2 advanced oxidation on the content and characteristics of natural organic matter (NOM) originating from two different groundwaters (3.03–9.69 mg/L total organic carbon (TOC), 2.71–4.31 Lmg−1m−1 specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA)). Application of UV irradiation resulted in a minor reduction in the total content of NOM. Using UV/H2O2 advanced oxidation led to a significant reduction of the aromatic character of NOM (SUVA was reduced by up to 80%) and an increase in the hydrophilic character of the residual NOM, with the optimal UV/H2O2 treatment conditions depending on the water type. In addition, fluctuations in trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) were observed depending on the UV/H2O2 process conditions, with a maximal reduction of about 40% achieved for both waters.


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