Institute for Sustainability and Innovation, College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, PO Box 14428, Melbourne, Victoria, 8001, Australia.
College of Resource and Environmental Science, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China.
Water Res. 2017 Mar 15;111:375-381. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2017.01.020. Epub 2017 Jan 11.
We described a synchrotron-based infrared (IR) microscopic method to characterize fouling layer induced by organic foulants and colloidal silica in membrane distillation (MD). This technique, utilizing the ultrahigh brightness of synchrotron infrared source, enables spectra with high signal-to-noise ratio that was obtained from micrometer-sized samples. Our results showed that synchrotron IR mapping was able to resolve the foulant spatial distribution in combined fouling in MD. Synchrotron IR mapping showed the spatial distribution of binary foulant (i.e., colloidal silica with alginate, bovine serum albumin (BSA) or humic acid, respectively) of the cross-section of MD membrane fouling layer. The well-resolved synchrotron IR mapping is also able to quantify the foulant distribution along the cross-section of the fouled MD membrane, providing detailed information regarding the transport and accumulation of specific foulant, which is of paramount importance to elucidate fouling mechanisms. Our results demonstrated that the synchrotron IR mapping method was a powerful method and had significant potential for both qualitative and quantitative characterization of membrane fouling layer.
我们描述了一种基于同步加速器的红外（IR）显微镜方法，用于表征膜蒸馏（MD）中有机污染物和胶体硅引起的污垢层。该技术利用同步加速器红外光源的超高亮度，从微米级大小的样品中获得具有高信噪比的光谱。我们的结果表明，同步加速器 IR 映射能够解析 MD 中复合污染的污垢空间分布。同步加速器 IR 映射显示了 MD 膜污垢层横截面中二元污垢（即分别与藻酸盐、牛血清白蛋白（BSA）或腐殖酸结合的胶体硅）的空间分布。解析度良好的同步加速器 IR 映射还能够定量沿污染 MD 膜的横截面的污垢分布，提供有关特定污垢的传输和积累的详细信息，这对于阐明污垢机制至关重要。我们的结果表明，同步加速器 IR 映射方法是一种强大的方法，具有对膜污垢层进行定性和定量表征的巨大潜力。
