Evaluating the effect of antiscalants on membrane biofouling using FTIR and multivariate analysis

Figures & data

Figure 1. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of biofilm formation conducted in a 24-well microtiter plate (modified from Lutskiy et al. 2015; Jung et al. 2018).

Figure 2. FTIR spectra of RO membranes after exposure to different media in the presence of H. aquamarina (incubation: 48 h at 30 °C; concentration: 1g l⁻¹). Virgin RO – pure RO membrane surface; Negative control – MSM (no carbon source) with bacteria and MSM + carbon source (acrylic/maleic/poly acrylic acid/glucose) without bacteria; Positive control – glucose in MSM; AA + MSM – acrylic acid in MSM; PAA + MSM – poly acrylic acid in MSM; MA + MSM – maleic acid in MSM.

Table 1. Peak assignments to characterize biofilm layer*.

Peaks (cm^-1)	Peak assignments	Feature(s)
2,900–3,300	Polysaccharides	Polysaccharides
3,200	N-H stretching of amide A in proteins	Proteins
2,955	C-H asymmetric stretching of -CH3 in fatty acids	Fatty acids/lipids
2,930	C-H asymmetric stretching of > CH2 in fatty acids	Fatty acids/lipids
2,898	C-H stretching of ≥ C-H of amino acids	Proteins
2,870	C-H symmetric stretching of -CH3 in fatty acids	Fatty acids/lipids
2,850	C-H symmetric stretching of > CH2 in fatty acids	Fatty acids/lipids
1,740	>C = O stretching of lipid esters	Fatty acids/lipids
1,715	>C = O stretching of ester, in nucleic acids and carbonic acids	--
1,650	Protein secondary structures (amide I)	Proteins
1,540	Protein secondary structures (amide II)	Proteins
1,468	C-H deformation of > CH2 in lipids, proteins	Lipids/proteins
1,415	C-O-H in-plane bending in carbohydrates, DNA/RNA backbone, proteins	Proteins
1,400	C = O symmetric stretching of COO- group in amino acids, fatty acids	Fatty acids
1,310–1,240	Amide III band components of proteins	Proteins
1,240	P = O asymmetric stretching of phosphodiesters in phospholipids	Fatty acids/lipids
1,100	Polysaccharides and alike substances	Polysaccharides
1,085	P = O symmetric stretching in DNA, RNA and phospholipids	Fatty acids/lipids
1,342–952	Various cellular components	--
720	C-H rocking of > CH2 in fatty acids, proteins	Fatty acids/proteins

* Boubakri and Bouguecha, 2008; Karime et al. 2008; Krishnamurthy et al. 2010; Xu et al.2010; Rabiller-Baudry et al. 2012; Dixit et al. 2014.

Figure 3. Increase in absorbance for selected peaks representing: (A) fatty acids and phospholipids, (B) polysaccharides, (C) protein components of the biofilm layer. Neg. control – MSM (no carbon source) with bacteria, and MSM + carbon source (acrylic/maleic/poly acrylic acid/glucose) without bacteria; Pos. control – glucose in MSM; AA + MSM – acrylic acid in MSM; PAA + MSM – poly acrylic acid in MSM; MA + MSM – maleic acid in MSM.

Figure 4. Clustering of variables obtained through PCA using The Unscrambler (V10.5).

Figure 5. Biplot obtained for (A) the proteins; (B) the fatty acids and phospholipids; (C) the polysaccharide components of the biofilm using XLSTAT (V2016).

Figure 6. Clustering of the biofilm components obtained in the presence of different carbon sources.

Figure 7. CFU counts obtained from biofouled RO membranes.

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