Dhakal Controlling Biofouling in Seawater Reverse Osmosis Membrane Systems

Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-1-351-05608-3
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

The increasing global demand for potable water and the economy of scale in desalinating water will increase large-scale Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) plants in future. However, organic/biological fouling in SWRO membranes caused due to seasonal proliferation of algae and algal released organic matter (AOM) is an issue for cost effective operation of SWRO plants. In order to maintain the stable operation of SWRO plants, reliable pre-treatment systems which substantially reduces AOM and nutrients, such as carbon and phosphate from SWRO feed water, are needed. Hence, this research (i) developed a bacterial regrowth potential (BRP) method to assess the biofouling potential of SWRO feed water; and (ii) investigated the nutrients removal and the delay in biofouling when tight ultrafiltration (10 kDa) and bio-based phosphate adsorbent are used as pre-treatment systems. BRP method was developed using a natural consortium of marine bacteria as inoculum and flow cytometry. Experimental studies revealed that tight UF reduced AOM, bio-based phosphate adsorbent reduced phosphate, which lead to the lower biofouling potential of SWRO feed water. Simulation of biofouling in SWRO using membrane-fouling simulator (MFS) shows that the pre-treated feed water using the aforementioned pre-treatment systems will lead to less biofouling due to lower rate of head loss development. It is expected that the BRP method developed through this research and the tested pretreatment systems will result in better operation and maintenance of SWRO plants during algal blooms.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dhakal, Nirajan

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften
• Technische Wissenschaften Umwelttechnik | Umwelttechnologie Wasserversorgung, Wasseraufbereitung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 General introduction
2 Perspective and challenges for desalination
3 Measuring bacterial regrowth potential (BRP) in seawater reverse osmosis using a natural bacterial consortium and flow cytometry
4 Understanding ultrafiltration membrane fouling induced by four marine bloom forming algae
5 The role of tight UF on reducing the bacterial regrowth potential of SWRO feed water
6 Phosphate removal in seawater reverse osmosis feed water: An option to control biofouling
7 General conclusions and future perspective

Über Autor(innen)

Nirajan Dhakal is a Lecturer in Water Supply Engineering at IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands. He completed his MSc degree in Water Supply Engineering at UNESCO-IHE in 2011 and he will be awarded with a PhD degree at the Technical University of Delft on November 2017. He has a second MSc degree in Regional Development Planning and Management from the University of Dortmund, Germany, and University of the Philippines in 2009. He has more than 6 years of consultancy and research experience in water supply engineering. For the last 5 years, Nirajan has been involved in various research projects related to algal blooms and membrane based seawater desalination in collaboration with the Wetsus European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology. He is broadly interested in desalination with particular emphasis on algal blooms and membrane fouling and scaling mechanisms, mitigation, and control, pre-treatment technologies and modelling.