State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China; School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510006, China.
State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Water Res. 2019 Jan 1;148:546-555. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2018.10.041. Epub 2018 Oct 17.
The understanding of fouling behavior and mechanism is critical for fouling control in membrane processes. This study adopted a novel fluorescence front-face excitation-emission matrix (FF-EEM) approach to characterize the fluorescence foulants deposited on membrane surface. Methods for quantifying protein and humic substances deposited on ultrafiltration (UF) membrane were established. Foulants deposited on the membrane surface during the UF of model foulants (bovine serum albumin (BSA) and humic acids (HA)) and wastewater effluent organic matter (EfOM) were quantified using the FF-EEM and liquid EEM coupled with mass balance calculation. The foulants mass data obtained by FF-EEM were further used to analyze fouling mechanism involved in UF. The FF-EEM based method was more accurate than the liquid EEM based method, as the problems associated with liquid EEM based method (such as the error propagation in the mass balance calculation and the ineffectiveness of inner filter correction) were avoided in FF-EEM based method. The fouling resistance did not correlate well with the amount of foulants, as the major fouling mechanism instead of the mass of foulants mainly determined the extent of fouling. This work demonstrated FF-EEM could be a powerful tool for investigating fouling evolution and fouling mechanism in UF process.
了解污垢行为和机制对于膜过程中的污垢控制至关重要。本研究采用了一种新颖的荧光前向激发-发射矩阵（FF-EEM）方法来表征沉积在膜表面上的荧光污垢。建立了定量测定超滤（UF）膜上沉积的蛋白质和腐殖质的方法。采用 FF-EEM 和液 EEM 结合质量平衡计算，定量测定了模型污染物（牛血清白蛋白（BSA）和腐殖酸（HA））和废水有机物（EfOM）在 UF 过程中沉积在膜表面上的污垢。FF-EEM 获得的污垢质量数据进一步用于分析 UF 中涉及的污垢机制。基于 FF-EEM 的方法比基于液体 EEM 的方法更准确，因为避免了基于液体 EEM 的方法（例如质量平衡计算中的误差传播和内滤校正的无效性）相关问题。污垢阻力与污垢量相关性不大，因为主要的污垢机制而不是污垢量主要决定了污垢的程度。这项工作表明，FF-EEM 可以成为研究 UF 过程中污垢演变和污垢机制的有力工具。
