In water treatment process using microfiltration membranes, manganese is a substance that causes inorganic membrane fouling. As a result of analysis on the operation data taken from I WTP(Water Treatment Plant), it was confirmed that the increase of TMP was very severe during the period of manganese inflow. The membrane fouling fastened the increase of TMP and shortened the service time of filtration or the cleaning cycle. The TMP of the membrane increased to the maximum of 2.13 kgf/cm2, but it was recovered to the initial level (0.17 kgf/cm2) by the 1st acid cleaning step. It was obvious that the main membrane fouling contaminants are due to inorganic substances. As a result of the analysis on the chemical waste, the concentrations of aluminum(146-164 mg/L) and manganese(110-126 mg/L) were very high. It is considered that aluminum was due to the residual unreacted during coagulation step as a pretreatment process. And manganese is thought to be due to the adsorption on the membrane surface as an adsorbate in feed water component during filtration step. For the efficient maintenance of the membrane filtration facilities, optimization of chemical concentration and CIP conditions is very important when finding the abnormal level of influent including foulants such as manganese.
In this study, it is estimated that ceramic membrane process which can operate stably in harsh conditions replacing existing organic membrane connected with coagulation, sedimentation etc. . Jar-test was conducted by using artificial raw water containing kaolin and humic acid. It was observed that coagulant (A-PAC, 10.6%) 4mg/l is the optimal dose. As a results of evaluation of membrane single filtration process (A), coagulation-membrane filtration process (B) and coagulation-sedimentation-membrane filtration process (C), TMP variation is stable regardless of in Flux 2 m3/m2・day. But in Flux 5 m3/m2・day, it show change of 1-89.3 kpa by process. TMP of process (B) and (C) is increased 11.8, 0.6 kpa each. But, the (A) showed the greatest change of TMP. When evaluate (A) and (C) in Flux 10 m3/m2・day, TMP of (A) stopped operation being exceeded 120 kpa in 20 minutes. On the other hand, TMP of (C) is increased only 3 kpa in 120 minutes. Through this, membrane filtration process can be operated stably by using the linkage between the pretreatment process and the ceramic membrane filtration process. Turbidity of treated water remained under 0.1 NTU regardless of flux condition and DOC and UV254 showed a removal rate of 65-85%, 95% more each at process connected with pretreatment. Physical cleaning was carried out using water and air of 500kpa to show the recovery of pollutants formed on membrane surface by filtration. In (A) process, TMP has increased rapidly and decreased the recovery by physical cleaning as the flux rises. This means that contamination on membrane surface is irreversible fouling difficult to recover by using physical cleaning. Process (B) and (C) are observed high recovery rate of 60% more in high flux and especially recovery rate of process (B) is the highest at 95.8%. This can be judged that the coagulation flocs in the raw water formed cake layer with irreversible fouling and are favorable to physical cleaning. As a result of estimation, observe that ceramic membrane filtration connected with pretreatment improves efficiency of filtration and recovery rate of physical cleaning. And ceramic membrane which is possible to operate in the higher flux than organic membrane can be reduce the area of water purification facilities and secure a stable quantity of water by connecting the ceramic membrane with pretreatment process.