Comparison of different model solutions to simulate membrane fouling in the ultrafiltration of a secondary effluent from a municipal wastewater treatment plant

The quality of the secondary treatment effluent (STE) from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWWTP) is not good enough for some applications such as agriculture. Membrane ultrafiltration (UF) has been proven to be a reliable tertiary treatment to achieve the needed water quality. The productivity of the UF processes depends on the membrane fouling. The aim of this work is to prepare a model wastewater that could mimic the fouling trend of a STE wastewater from a MWWTP. Several model wastewaters consisting of different proteins and carbohydrates were used in the UF experiments. UF was also performed with a STE. The membrane used in the UF tests was a UFCM5 from Norit X-flow((R)) hydrophilic polyethersulfone/polyvinylpyrrolidone blend hollow-fiber UF membrane of 200 KDa molecular weight cut-off with a fiber diameter of 1.5 mm. Membrane configuration was inside-out. UF tests with model wastewater and STE wastewater were compared. The results showed that the best model wastewater, which represents the fouling trend of STE wastewater is the model wastewater whose composition is 15 mg/l of bovine serum albumin and 5.5 mg/l of dextran.