Fouling and cleaning of reverse osmosis membrane applied to membrane bioreactor effluent treating textile wastewater

Abstract

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane system was applied to the treatment and reclamation of textile wastewater in Thailand. An experiment was carried out to determine the fouling behavior and effect of anti-scalant and biocide addition to flux decline and its recovery through chemical cleaning. The RO unit was operated for one month after which the fouled membranes were cleaned by sequential chemical cleaning method. RO flux was found rapidly declined during initial period and only slightly decreased further in long-term operation. The main foulants were organic compounds and thus sequential cleaning using alkaline solution followed by acid solution was found to be the most effective method. The provision of anti-scalant and biocide in feed-water could not prevent deposition of foulant on the membrane surface but helped improving the membrane cleaning efficiencies. Keywords: Fouling, Membrane cleaning, Reverse osmosis, Textile wastewater, Wastewater reclamation