Evaluation of Surfactant-Enhanced Cleaning Solutions for Humic Acid and BSA Fouling on Ceramic Membranes

Abstract

Chemically enhanced backwash (CEB) has achieved extensive application, offering substantial improvements in fouling mitigation and enhancing membrane performance and longevity. Two commercially available non-ionic surfactants, Tween 80 and Triton X100, were employed at their CMC and combined with conventional cleaning solutions to evaluate NOM fouling and cleaning at different concentrations, utilizing membrane permeability, resistance in series (RIS), carbon mass balance, and contact angle. The use of surfactants in CEB dropped the contact angle by 20%. The transmembrane pressure (TMP) with Tween 80 and Triton X-100 based CEB solutions were in the range of 83-100 kPa and 88-95 kPa with the medium concentrations (CEBMTw & CEBMTx) compared to DI which was 128 kPa for HA and BSA. Tween-based CEBs exhibited a 50% reduction in fouling resistance on HA and 90% on BSA when medium and high concentrations (CEBMTw and CEBHTw) were employed, in comparison to hydraulic (DI) backwash