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A comparative study of microfiltration and ultrafiltration of activated sludge-lagoon effluent Nguyen, T, Fan, L, Roddick, F and Harris, J 2009, 'A comparative study of microfiltration and ultrafiltration of activated sludge-lagoon effluent', Desalination, vol. 236, no. 01Mar, pp. 208-215. Document type: Journal Article Collection: Journal Articles Title A comparative study of microfiltration and ultrafiltration of activated sludge-lagoon effluent Author(s) Nguyen, T Fan, L Roddick, F Harris, J Year 2009 Journal name Desalination Volume number 236 Issue number 01Mar Start page 208 End page 215 Total pages 8 Publisher Elsevier Science B.V. Abstract Melbourne's Western Treatment Plant is unusual in that it employs a sequential activated sludge-lagoon (AS-lagoon) system to treat municipal wastewater. Reuse of the treated water is limited for some applications due to salt content, and membrane pre-treatment prior to reverse osmosis is under consideration. The use of microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) for improving the quality of water prior to reverse osmosis was investigated. The organic components of the feed water (AS-lagoon effluent), permeates and foulant layers were characterised using three-dimensional excitation-emission-matrix (EEM) spectroscopy, attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), dissolved organic carbon (DOC) determination, size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and ultraviolet (UV) absorbance. DOC removal was 28% for UF and 2% for MF. MF removed mostly non-UV absorbing molecules of AMW 40-70 kDa, whereas UF removed molecules in this size range, a high proportion of which were UV-absorbing, as well as some organic compounds in the 3-8 kDa range, some of which were UV-absorbing. The organic compounds removed by UF had hydrophobic, hydrophilic and transphilic character, and were shown to comprise humic-like matter, soluble microbial products and protein-like extracellular matter. Fulvic-like matter largely passed through the UF membrane. ATR-FTIR analysis of fouled MF and UF membranes showed that polysaccharides, polysaccharide-like compounds and proteins were the prominent components in the fouling layer. Keyword(s) Activated sludge Lagoon Microfiltration Organic fouling Organic matter Ultrafiltration DOI - identifier 10.1016/j.desal.2007.10.069 Copyright notice © 2008 Elsevier B.V. ISSN 0011-9164 Related Links Link Description http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2007.10.069 Link to Published Version   Versions Version Filter Type Fri, 07 Jan 2011, 11:11:08 EST Wed, 18 Jun 2014, 00:30:10 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 11 times in Thomson Reuters Web of Science Article | Citations Cited 10 times in Scopus Article | Citations Altmetric details: Access Statistics: 317 Abstract Views  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Fri, 07 Jan 2011, 09:11:00 EST by Catalyst Administrator