Application of supercritical CO_2 for cleaning of reverse osmosis membrane biofouling

摘要

Supercritical CO_2 (SC-CO_2) which has unique properties such as high diffusivity and solvent power was, for the first time, applied in a continuous flow mode of SC-CO_2 application to clean the fouled reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. The fouled RO membrane surface before and after SC-CO_2 application was analyzed by confocal laser scanning microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to observe any change of biofuling structure accumulated on the fouled surface of RO membrane. This study shows that SC-CO_2 application was very effective not only to remove biofouling structure from RO membrane surface, but also inactivate microbe relating biofouling on the RO membrane without any damages on RO membrane.