The dye or humic acid water treatment and membrane fouling by polyaluminum chloride composited with sodium alginate in coagulation–ultrafiltration process

Abstract

Composite flocculants have been extensively studied and applied in recent years in order to improve the water treatment efficiency. In this study, a new composite flocculant prepared by polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and sodium alginate (SA) was used to treat dye and humic acid water in the coagulation-ultrafiltration process. The subsequent effects of PAC/SA on ultrafiltration membrane fouling were investigated by calculating the Modified Fouling Index (MFI). The results showed that the application of PAC/SA could not only restrict the membrane fouling but also improve the removal efficiency of the coagulation-ultrafiltration process. MFI of PAC/SA was the lowest, followed by PAC and the raw water for coagulated effluents filtered by ultrafiltration membrane. For example, MFI of PAC/SA was 0.40 s mL(-2) for reactive blue KGL (denoted as RB-KGL) treatment, while that of PAC was 2.26 s mL(-2). The removal efficiencies were improved as coagulation was used as pretreatment of ultrafiltration membrane. And PAC/SA could form the higher removal efficiency than PAC, especially for RB-KGL. The color removal efficiency of PAC/SA was 96.36% for RB-KGL treated by coagulation-ultrafiltration process, which was higher than that of PAC (85.62%).