Impact of e-beam irradiation of municipal secondary effluent on MF and RO membranes performances

Due to water scarcity, development of innovative processes for wastewater reuse has become a priority. Hence, hybrid processes coupling membrane separation with advanced oxidation processes could play a decisive role in the production of safe water. However, membrane fouling is still one of the main limitations to process widespread application. Thus, the present study investigates the impact of e-beam irradiation on the fouling ability of a secondary effluent (SE) filtered on MF and subsequently on RD membranes. For this, two electron beam radiation doses (1 and 5 kGy) were investigated. Results demonstrate that whatever the radiation dose investigated, no change in terms of TOC in SE was observed (prior to filtration). However, a strong decrease in 1JV254 and fluorescence signal was observed for organic matter (OM) exhibiting a MW ranging from 135 to 10 kDa. Pre -oxidation was found to efficiently optimize ME filtration permeate flux whereas no improvement could be observed regarding RD separation. Moreover it was demonstrated that ME efficiently removed the high MW compounds and was barely efficient in low MW compounds removal. Energetic balance based on experimental results demonstrates that 1 kGy was a sufficient dose to operate the hybrid e-beam irradiation and ME process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.