Abstract
We investigated the effect of the water sampling points in a highly turbid river in Southeast Asia on membrane fouling and particle rejection through the microfiltration (MF). The water in the upstream contained more particles larger than 3 μm than that in the downstream. Filtration resistance of the upstream water was smaller than the downstream water due to higher porosity of the cake layer formed. Nevertheless, the particle rejection efficiency through the filtration of the upstream water was by 0.1~1.3 log10 higher than the filtration of the downstream water. Thus, it was suggested that the river water containing larger particles, as that in the upstream, formed thicker cake layer with higher porosity, which brought about lower fouling resistance and higher particle rejection efficiency. We compared the pore size distributions of membranes with the particle size distributions of river waters. It was indicated that the initial stage of filtration resistance was dominated by pore clogging when the particles with comparable sizes to the membrane pores were contained in the feed water, which lead to severe fouling resistance.
