Investigation of manganese oxide fouling and novel salt cleaning of an MF membrane

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the cleaning efficiency of manganese and organic fouled microfiltration (MF) membranes using salt solutions. Manganese and humic acid (HA) were used as foulants separately or together. Relative permeability and filtration resistance of feed water containing only manganese and together with HA were observed. Fouling mechanisms were evaluated using the Hermia model. Flux reduction and filtration resistance increased sharply in case of feed water containing both manganese and HA. In this case, based on Hermia analysis, fouling mechanisms match well with the cake filtration and intermediate pore blocking models. By controlling the concentration of salt cleaning solutions (i.e., NaCl), flux recovery, resistance removal, foulants concentration eluted from the membrane surface and visual image of membrane surface after salt cleaning were investigated. It was clearl…