Fouling of organic fractionation on ultrafiltration membrane for drinking water treatment:a case study

The aim of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the range of organic molecular weight (MW)causing membrane fouling through the comparison between direct UF and in-line coagulation(without settling)/UF process.The experimental results indicated that,when raw water with organics was treated and the MW of more than half of the organics was less than 1 kDa,membrane fouling was rather serious by only UF and coagulation could improve the fouling for the treatment of raw water.Besides,coagulation/UF could remove organics in each region,and organics with MW greater than 30 kDa were the most possible matters causing membrane fouling,while organics with MW less than 1 kDa were impossibly responsible for membrane fouling due to few organics removed.Therefore,organics with MW greater than 30 kDa were the major factor of membrane fouling.