A study on organic fouling of reverse osmosis membrane

Abstract

This study used sodium alginate and bovine serum albumin (BSA), which were model polysaccharide and protein, respectively, to study the polysaccharide and protein fouling behavior in two lab-scale reverse osmosis (RO) membrane cells in different dimensions. The first test cell was 0.1 m in length and was treated as a homogenous system while the second one was a 1-m long cell which was designed to measure five local permeate flux along the channel. It was found that some key parameters (such as pH, ionic strength, ion type) of solution chemistry had significant impacts on the fouling potential of organic solution. Additionally, apart from feed solution properties, more variables affected the organic fouling development in a long RO membrane channel, where it was found that concentration polarization grew exponentially along the channel. These possible variables were incorporate into a model to simulate alginate fouling development in a RO membrane channel.