Engineering Commons^™

Membrane Pre-Treatment Using Chemical Disinfectants In Halide Impaired Waters, Holly M. Haflich, Kun Huang, Amisha D. Shah, John Howarter, Logan Kearney

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The use of membrane filtration processes for desalination, water reuse, and water reclamation techniques are becoming more prevalent given freshwater shortages. However, the treatment of these waters is challenging because of the membranes used in these processes. During nanofiltration and reverse osmosis the membranes undergo biofouling. Reverse osmosis and nanofiltration are high-pressure membrane filtration techniques that treat seawater, brackish waters, and industrial wastewaters. Because of the biofouling, the polyamide thin film needs to be pretreated with chlorine (HOCl/ OCl-) as a disinfectant, but this damages the polyamide membrane. When the free chlorine is in the presence of halide-impaired waters, it …