Investigation of membrane fouling mechanism towards potable water production by membrane filtration against highly turbid surface water in Asian developing countries

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26889019
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Civil and environmental engineering
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: HASHIMOTO Takashi 東京大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (80735712)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 膜ろ過 / 浄水供給 / 適正処理技術 / 開発途上国 / 貯留 / 膜ファウリング / 可視化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated the effect of raw water storing as an appropriate pre-treatment for membrane filtration in developing countries. We obtained the result that the raw water storing effectively mitigated membrane fouling by reducing both solids and organic substances for membrane filtration through adsorption and precipitation. It was also found that inorganic colloids such as ferrihydrite in surface water adsorbed organic substances, which lead to membrane fouling mitigation.
We developed a novel method for visualizing foulants inside membranes on the molecular scale with the super-resolution microscopy. This method, for the first time, successfully visualized the distribution of trace foulants inside membrane after cleaning procedure that have never been detected by conventional methods.

Free Research Field

土木工学・土木環境システム