AWWA MTC53667

The objective of this work was to compare the fouling properties towardultrafiltration membranes of the major fractions of NOM isolated from varioussurface waters. Several NOM fractions isolated from various surface water sourceshave been ultrafiltered with two different 100 KD membranes using two differentdead-end filtration units. From a general point of view, no simple relationshipcould be established between general structural characteristic of the NOM andtheir fouling properties, an observation which indicates the complexity ofmembrane fouling phenomena due to NOM. Nevertheless, results have clearly shownthat among the major NOM fractions isolated from a surface water, the colloidalfraction (bacterial peptidoglycan residues) results in the most significantfouling based on our experimental protocol. From a more general point of view,results have underlined the importance of proteins and aminosugars as the mainfoulants of the UF membranes used. Includes 13 references, tables, figures.