Fouling properties of reverse osmosis membranes along the feed channel in an industrial-scale system for wastewater reclamation.

Membrane fouling is an inevitable disadvantage of the reverse osmosis (RO) process for wastewater reclamation. In order to clarify the development process of membrane fouling, all the fouled membranes along a feed channel of a two-stage industrial-scale RO system for wastewater reclamation (six elements in each stage) were autopsied and analyzed. The water flux and salt rejection efficiency of the fouled membranes at the head and tail were the lowest among 12 elements, thereby indicating more severe fouling on these membranes. In this RO system, most of the organic compounds deposited on the head elements of each stage were mainly composed of proteins, polysaccharides, and fulvic acid. The ATP concentrations of the foulants on the first and twelfth elements were much higher than those of the other elements, suggesting severe biofouling. Although microbes can cause organic fouling owing to extracellular polymeric substances production, no clear correlation was found between organic fouling and biofouling in this study. For example, the ATP concentrations on the second element and seventh element were similar (1.16 ng/cm and 1.26 ng/cm, respectively), thereby suggesting a similar extent of biofouling, but organic fouling of the second element was relatively slight (DOC: 24.8 mg/m) compared with that of the seventh element (DOC: 46.2 mg/m). The seventh element (ATP: 1.26 ng/cm) was more severely biofouled than the eighth element (ATP: 0.15 ng/cm), but they suffered from the same level of organic fouling (DOC: 46.2 mg/m and 47.1 mg/m, respectively). Approximately 70% of metallic elements, predominantly Fe, were deposited on the first element. Although the concentration of Fe in the feed water was much lower than those of Ca and Mg, the concentration of Fe on the first three elements was significantly higher than that of any other element, suggesting that Fe was more easily deposited on the RO membranes.