Effect of coagulation on fouling potential and removal of algal organic matter in ultrafiltration pretreatment to seawater reverse osmosis

This paper investigated the effect of coagulation on fouling potential and removal of algal organic matter (AOM) in seawater ultrafiltration (UF) systems. AOM harvested from a strain of bloom forming marine diatom, Chaetoceros affinis, was coagulated with ferric chloride under different coagulation modes and conditions. The effect of coagulation on fouling potential was determined with the Modified Fouling Index-Ultrafiltration (MFI-UF). Removal of AOM was studied for three different modes of coagulation, namely, coagulation followed by sedimentation, coagulation followed by sedimentation and filtration through 0.45 mu m, and inline coagulation followed by filtration through 150 kDa UF membranes. Liquid chromatography organic carbon detection was used to determine the removal of AOM with particular emphasis on biopolymers. AOM (as biopolymers) had a high fouling potential as measured by MFI-UF, which strongly depended on filtration flux. Moreover, the developed cake/gel layer on the membrane was fairly compressible during filtration; manifested as higher fouling potential at higher filtration flux and non-linear development of pressure in filtration tests. Coagulation substantially reduced fouling potential and compressibility of the AOM cake/gel layer. The impact of coagulation was particularly significant at coagulant doses >1 mg Fe/L. Coagulation also substantially reduced the flux-dependency of AOM fouling potential, resulting in linear development of pressure in filtration tests at constant flux. This was attributed to adsorption of biopolymers on precipitated iron hydroxide and formation of Fe-biopolymer aggregates, such that the fouling characteristics of iron hydroxide precipitates prevailed and AOM fouling characteristics diminished. At low coagulant dose, inline coagulation/UF was more effective in removing AOM than the other two coagulation modes tested. At high coagulant dose where sweep floc conditions prevailed, AOM removal was considerably higher and controlled by coagulant dose rather than coagulation mode. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.