Characterizing the roles of organic and inorganic foulants in RO membrane fouling development: The case of coal chemical wastewater treatment

Abstract In this study, various fouling characteristics on the surface of a commercial reverse osmosis (RO) membrane were identified, in terms of different organic and inorganic components. Specifically, a practical secondary wastewater of coal chemical industry was used as the feed solution, and was fractionated into six hydrophobic/hydrophilic acid/base/neutral portions. RO membrane fouling behaviors at different stages were critically described using two characteristic parameters, i.e., initial flux decline rate and final steady-state flux. These parameters were quantified using Michaelis-Menten relation as a model fitting method. In general, the hydrophilic neutral (HIN) and hydrophobic neutral (HON) fractions had the fastest initial fouling rate and the lowest steady-state flux, mainly due to their high contents of polysaccharide. Among the organic constituents (polysaccharide/protein/humic acid), polysaccharide was the most responsible for rapid initial flux decline and low final steady-state flux, as proved by Kendall’s correlation. Among the inorganic constituents (Ca/Mg/Si), Si was found to exert the greatest influence on the final steady-state flux. This indicates that polysaccharide and Si played a combined role in determining the foulant layer permeability at the prolonged fouling stage, and a possible mechanism is that Si might alter the structure of polysaccharide gel layer. Further information on the fouling layers was systematically provided by means of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with fractal dimension analysis.