Analysis of Fouling Mechanism in Polysulfone based Ultrafiltration Membrane during Peat Water Filtration

Polysulfone (PSf) has been widely used as ultrafiltration (UF) membrane material due to its thermal and chemical stability. However, membrane fouling becomes a severe problem limiting the potential of PSf membrane. This fouling is mainly formed by deposition of organic onto membrane surface which resulting the decrease of permeate flux. There are four fouling mechanisms proposed by Hermia (1982), namely cake formation, standard blocking, intermediate blocking, and complete blocking. In this work, the types of fouling mechanism that occurred in PSf based UF membrane during peat water filtration were investigated. In addition, the effect of trans-membrane pressure was also studied. The determination of fouling mechanism was conducted by optimization of the fouling parameters, including Kcf (cake formation), Ksb (standard blocking), Kib (intermediate blocking), and Kcb (complete blocking). The results showed that complete blocking became the dominant fouling mechanism in this work. Meanwhile, the trans-membrane pressure did not affect fouling mechanism.