Performance of Flocculation and Adsorption Pretreatments to Ultrafiltration of Biologically Treated Sewage Effluent: the Effect of Seasonal Variations

Abstract

The effect of seasonal variations on ultrafiltration (UF) following pretreatment was investigated in terms of organic removal, removal of fraction, and molecular weight (MW) distribution. The MW range of effluent organic matter (EfOM) in biologically treated sewage effluent during winter (BTSE‐W) consisted of large MW. However, the MW ranged from 3000 to 200 daltons in biologically treated sewage effluent in the summer (BTSE‐S). During filtration experiments of BTSE‐S, the UF NTR 7410 filter showed rapid flux decline with time without pretreatment. FeCl₃ flocculation removed the hydrophobic (HP) and hydrophilic (HL) fractions with different trends. In winter the HP fraction was removed up to 68.5%, whereas during the summer season, the HL fraction was removed by up to 59.8%. Flocculation removed large MW organics together with small MW, while PAC removed the majority of small MW organics. The flux decline with adsorption was also more severe than that with flocculation. Considering MW distribution, when large MW was removed by flocculation, the flux decline was minimized, whereas PAC adsorption which removed small MW still decreased the permeate flux.

Keywords:

• Adsorption
• biologically treated sewage effluent
• flocculation
• pretreatment
• ultrafiltration

Acknowledgements

The support of UTS Chancellor's postdoctoral research fellowship grant of University of Technology, Sydney and the Kwanjeong Education Foundation for the scholarship is greatly appreciated. This research was funded by ARC linkage international grant (2004).