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Reduction of Ultrafiltration Membrane Fouling by the Pretreatment Removal of Emerging Pollutants: A Review
Summary
Researchers reviewed pretreatment methods such as coagulation, adsorption, and advanced oxidation for reducing ultrafiltration membrane fouling caused by emerging pollutants including microplastics and antibiotics. The study suggests that while these pretreatments show promise, the mechanisms by which emerging pollutants contribute to membrane fouling still need further investigation.
Ultrafiltration (UF) processes exhibit high removal efficiencies for suspended solids and organic macromolecules, while UF membrane fouling is the biggest obstacle affecting the wide application of UF technology. To solve this problem, various pretreatment measures, including coagulation, adsorption, and advanced oxidation, for application prior to UF processes have been proposed and applied in actual water treatment processes. Previously, researchers mainly focused on the contribution of natural macromolecular pollutants to UF membrane fouling, while the mechanisms of the influence of emerging pollutants (EPs) in UF processes (such as antibiotics, microplastics, antibiotic resistance genes, etc.) on membrane fouling still need to be determined. This review introduces the removal efficiency and separation mechanism for EPs for pretreatments combined with UF membrane separation technology and evaluates the degree of membrane fouling based on the UF membrane's materials/pores and the structural characteristics of the cake layer. This paper shows that the current membrane separation process should be actively developed with the aim of overcoming specific problems in order to meet the technical requirements for the efficient separation of EPs.
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