Enhanced Effluent Quality of Microfiltration Ceramic Membrane by Pre-Electrocoagulation

Abstract

To purge micro polluted surface water more effectively through microfiltration (MF) ceramic membrane, electrocoagulation (EC) was employed to improve the effluent quality of the ceramic membrane. Process variables such as current density, influent flux and filtering mode were investigated based on the single factor experiment analysis. The refined EC-MF operating parameters were a current density of 2.0 mA·cm⁻², an influent flow rate of 4 L·min⁻¹ and cross flow filtration without recycling. Meanwhile, comparison of MF ceramic membrane performance with chemical-coagulation (CC) and electrocoagulation pretreatment was conducted. The results stated that conventional chemical coagulation was superior to aluminum based electrocoagulation and the gap in removal efficiency broaden with the escalation of Al³⁺ concentration since pre-CC had a higher removal rate of aromatic organic compounds.