The Effect of Different Pretreatment Methods on the Membrane Fouling in the Process of Reverse Osmosis Seawater Desalination

Abstract

One new pretreatment method was developed for solving the formed fouling on the equipments in the process of reverse osmosis seawater desalination, and the effect of different pretreatment methods on the membrane fouling was investigated. The experiment results showed that the flux attenuation rate of reverse osmosis membrane used in hardness-removed seawater was slower than the one of direct ultrafiltration seawater, and the salt reject rate and conductivity of output water from reverse osmosis membrane were not obviously affected by these two different pretreatment methods respectively. By according to the characterization of SEM, EDX and IR, the rapid attenuation of membrane flux was caused by the piled inorganic crystals on the membrane surface in direct ultra-filtration process, and the hardness-removed pretreatment process can effectively decrease the membrane fouling.