Organic fouling control in reverse osmosis (RO) by effective membrane cleaning using saturated CO2 solution
Name:
organic fouling_RO cleaning with CO2 Seppur 2021 online version.pdf
Size:
2.157Mb
Format:
PDF
Description:
Accepted manuscript
Embargo End Date:
2023-01-30
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Environmental Science and Engineering ProgramBiological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC), Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia.
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)
Date
2021-01-30Embargo End Date
2023-01-30Submitted Date
2020-08-24Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/667121
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Although reverse osmosis (RO) currently dominates the global desalination market, membrane fouling remains a major operational obstacle, which penalizes sustainable plant operation. This study explores a new membrane cleaning technique that uses a saturated CO2 solution to alleviate membrane fouling caused by organic matter, without any additional chemicals. When the CO2 saturated solution is injected into the membrane module at a given pressure, CO2 bubbles start nucleating throughout the membrane surface. This phenomenon is intensified underneath the deposited foulants. The porous structure of the foulants presents cavities, which are considered as imperfection sites that act as a substrate for CO2 bubbles nucleation, leading to an effective membrane cleaning. In this study, sodium alginate, a model polysaccharide, was mixed with different concentrations of Ca2+ to evaluate the cleaning efficiency of the CO2 technique under severe operating conditions when formed Ca2+/alginate fouling layers significantly impend the RO process performance. Furthermore, the effect of hydrodymamic conditions and CO2 saturation pressure on efficiency of permeate flux recovery and membrane morphology is also evaluated and the results are compared to those achieved with Milli-Q water and acidic solution at pH 4 cleanings. Better permeate flux recoveries were observed at higher Ca2+ concentrations comparing to fouling expriments at lower concentrations. The observed effect was attributed to a transition from the gel layer to a looser cake layer which makes CO2 bubble nucleation and subsequent permeate flux recovery more effective due to the presence of a larger number of CO2 nucleation sites as a result of a formation of more porous fouling structures. Permeate flux recovery increased with the increase in cleaning time, cross-flow velocity and CO2 saturation pressure.Citation
Alnajjar, H., Tabatabai, A., Alpatova, A., Leiknes, T., & Ghaffour, N. (2021). Organic fouling control in reverse osmosis (RO) by effective membrane cleaning using saturated CO2 solution. Separation and Purification Technology, 118410. doi:10.1016/j.seppur.2021.118410Sponsors
The research reported in this paper was supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. The authors would like to thank personnel of Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) and KAUST Core Lab for their assistance in water quality and surface characterization measurements.Publisher
Elsevier BVAdditional Links
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S138358662100112Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.seppur.2021.118410