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Influence of Low-Level Anionic Surfactant on PES Ultrafiltration Performance: Membrane Fouling and Rejection of Nuclides

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Abstract

Surfactants always play a special role in wastewater processes due to their amphiphilic properties. The performance of ultrafiltration was investigated for the treatment of wastewater containing low-level anionic surfactant and trace-level nuclides. Results showed that sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) below the critical micelle concentration (CMC) caused significant effects on membrane fouling and rejection of nuclides. The membrane flux decreased at SDBS concentrations below the CMC but increased at the concentrations near the CMC. The phenomenon was caused by two distinct effects of SDBS, pore blocking by the monomers and enhancement of nuclide scaling caused a decrease in flux, while hydrophilic modification of the membrane surface by micelles caused an increase in flux. The nuclides alone had no significant effect on membrane fouling, but the flux decreased upon an increase in nuclide concentration when coexisting with SDBS. After the addition of low-level SDBS, the rejections of nuclides increased sharply from 20–30 to 60–98 %. The rejections of Sr(II) and Co(II) were higher than those of Ag(I) and Cs(I) due to stronger complexation of SDBS with divalent cations compared with monovalent cations. Deposition of nuclides increased with the addition of SDBS and with increasing of nuclide concentration, resulting in more radioactive solid waste production and more frequent replacement of membrane module.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT-13026), and the Science & Technology project of Tsinghua University (Grant No. 2014z21021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Zhang, Lixia Niu, Suping Yu, Fuzhi Li & Xuan Zhao

  2. State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Microorganism Application and Risk Control (MARC), Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, People’s Republic of China

    Lixia Niu & Hongying Hu

  3. Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control State Key Joint Laboratory, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Hongying Hu

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  1. Xue Zhang
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  2. Lixia Niu
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  3. Suping Yu
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  4. Fuzhi Li
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  5. Xuan Zhao
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  6. Hongying Hu
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Correspondence to Xue Zhang or Xuan Zhao.

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Zhang, X., Niu, L., Yu, S. et al. Influence of Low-Level Anionic Surfactant on PES Ultrafiltration Performance: Membrane Fouling and Rejection of Nuclides. Water Air Soil Pollut 227, 274 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-016-2984-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-016-2984-y

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