Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Algal Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/algal

A comparative study of microltration and ultraltration for

algae harvesting
Xuefei Sun a, Cunwen Wang a,, Yanjie Tong a, Weiguo Wang a, Jiang Wei b,
a
b

Wuhan Institute of Technology, Xiongchu Avenue 693, Wuhan, PR China

Alfa Laval Nakskov A/S, Stavangervej 10, DK-4900 Nakskov, Denmark

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 19 March 2012
Received in revised form 26 June 2013
Accepted 20 August 2013
Available online 13 September 2013
Keywords:
Algae
Microltration
Ultraltration
Harvesting
Fouling

a b s t r a c t
The present work deals with the ltration and concentration of algae (Chlorella) from a diluted culture medium
using six commercial microltration membranes (MFP2, MFP5 and MFP8 with different pore sizes) and ultraltration membranes (FS40PP, FS61PP and ETNA10PP with different Molecular Weight Cut-Off (MWCO)). The
effects of the operating conditions, e.g. feed solution temperature, TMP (transmembrane pressure), VCF (volume
concentration factor) and cross-ow velocity on the ltration performance were investigated. The results
showed that permeate uxes increased with the increase in feed solution temperature, and the uxes were
probably limited by released extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) at higher temperatures. The permeate
uxes increased slowly with increasing TMP up to a certain limit, and after that the uxes were stable or even
decreased. The higher cross-ow velocity can signicantly decrease particles accumulating on the surface of
membrane, and thus leading to higher permeate ux. Although ETNA10PP exhibited much less fouling than
other membranes, the permeate ux of this membrane was not higher than other membranes most likely due
to the fact that this membrane is the tightest membrane with MWCO 10,000. The performance of UF and MF
membranes was compared for this application. The interesting nding of our work is that microltration and
ultraltration showed very similar performance in terms of permeate ux under the same operation conditions
at low TMP.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years, there has been increasing interest for the production
of biofuels recognizing algae biomass as the raw material [1,2]. The
production of biofuels through microalgae has not only attended to
the quest for renewable energy source, it also has enormous commercial
potential due to the growth rates of microalgae [3]. Microalgae can be
cultivated in seawater [4], salinealkali water [5], agricultural sewage
[6] and industrial wastewater [79]. More recently, sources of woody
material (Lignocellulose hydrolysates) have been considered to be an
attractive feedstock for microalgae cultivation, which are the most
widespread sources of carbon in nature. However, the harvest of
microalgae biomass is still a major problem because of the small size
of algae cells and low biomass concentration.
Although conventional methods, such as occulation, otation and
centrifugation have been used as processes for effective removal of
microalgae biomass from culture medium, there are still some problems
remaining during practical operations. For example, chemical occulents like alum and ferric chloride were used to harvest microalgae.
However, chemical occulation has not been used for large operations
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: wangcw118@hotmail.com (C. Wang), jiang.wei@alfalaval.com
(J. Wei).
2211-9264/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2013.08.004

[10]. Usually, otation was used in combination with occulation for

algae harvesting, but the cost of front otation was estimated to be too
high for commercial use [11]. Centrifugation and drying are currently
considered too expensive due to low content biomass of the culture
media.
Membrane technologies have been used for the removal of bacteria,
viruses and other microorganisms [12]. As manufacturing techniques
improve and the range of applications expands, the cost of membranes
and membrane systems have steadily decreased, which may make it
possible to use membrane technology for microalgae harvesting. Most
importantly, membrane ltration can achieve complete removal of
algae from the culture media [12]. Different membrane ltration technologies have been used for the removal or concentration of microalgae.
Zhang [13] evaluated the feasibility of using a cross-ow membrane
ultraltration process to harvest and dewater algae suspension, and
the microalgae was concentrated 150 times and nal algae concentration reached 154.85 g/L. Hung [14] studied how operating parameters
affect microltration and examined the effect of preozonation on ux
behavior when using hydrophobic and hydrophilic membranes. Zou
[15] investigated the effect of physical and chemical parameters on
forward osmosis (FO) fouling during algae separation. In addition, the
effect of solute reverse diffusion on FO fouling was systematically studied. Pressure-driven microltration (MF) and ultraltration (UF) membrane processes are prone to fouling and are relatively energy intensive,

438

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

Table 1
Membrane type and characteristics.
Membrane process

Type

Pore size

pH

Pressure, (bar)

Temperature (C)

Material

MF

MFP2
MFP5
MFP8
FS40PP
FS61PP
ETNA10PP

0.2
0.45
0.8
MWCO = 100,000
MWCO = 20,000
MWCO = 10,000

112
112
112
111
111
111

110
110
110
110
110
110

075
075
075
075
075
075

Fluoro polymer
Fluoro polymer
Fluoro polymer
Fluoro polymer
Fluoro polymer
Composite Fluoro polymer

UF

while the FO membrane process showed a very low permeate ux [16].

There were a few reports concerning comparison of MF and UF for
microalgae ltration. Chow et al. [16]. compared microltration and
ultraltration methods and found both techniques attractive for removal
of cyanobacterial cells. Rossignol [17] compared MF and UF technologies
for continuous ltration of microalgae. The results showed that,
although the pure water uxes of microltration membrane were
higher, during separation of microorganisms, uxes of the ultraltration
membrane became higher than microltration membrane.
The effectiveness of membrane separation is greatly affected by
fouling. It can be further explained that the accumulation of microorganisms on membrane surface or in membrane pores causes decline
in permeate ux [18]. Many efforts have been made to understand
and reduce fouling, including membrane surface modication and
new membrane material development [19,20]. Conventional polymeric
materials membranes have been widely used in ltration and concentration of microalgae [13,2123]. Rossignol [24] evaluated the performances of inorganic ltration membranes. Liu [25] utilized a thin,
porous metal sheet membrane to harvest microalgae, which exhibited
high properties of membrane area packing density, chemical stability,
thermal stability, mechanical strength, high permeability and low cost.
The purpose of our work is to compare the performance of
microltration and ultraltration for algae harvesting by using
microltration (MF) membranes with different pore size and ultraltration (UF) membranes with different MWCO. All 6 types of the membranes used are Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) based, and ETNA10PP
is a surface modied PVDF membrane. ETNA10PP is the only membrane
with hydrophilic surface [26], which is supposed to show lower fouling
tendency. Our intention is to investigate the inuence of membrane
materials (hydrophobic versus hydrophilic), membrane pore size, and
porosity on performance. We have studied how operating parameters
affect MF and UF ltration. MF and UF experiments were carried out
separately including 3 kinds of membranes in each test. Then, the
performance of the microltration membrane (MFP8) and ultraltration
membrane (FS40PP) were compared in the same test for the ltration of
Chlorella. The effect of VCF (Volume Concentration Factor = Total
starting feed volume / retentate volume) on permeate ux was also
studied during the concentration process of Chlorella.

membrane module M10 (a small lab-scale membrane module).

Performance of different membranes can be compared according to the
permeate ux and cell retention. The membrane characteristics are
shown in Table 1.
2.3. Experimental set-up
The schematic diagram of the membrane module is shown in Fig. 1.
The membrane module consists of four plates kept together with four
bolts. The module contains four at-sheet membrane samples operating
in series, with each having an effective ltration area of 0.0084 m2. Inlet
(Pin) and outlet pressures (Pout) are measured with pressure transducers
(D) and (F) mounted on the inlet and outlet of the membrane
module. The transmembrane pressure (TMP) was calculated as TMP =
(Pin + Pout) / 2-Ppermeate. A diluted Chlorella culture medium was kept
in the feed tank (G).
The membrane ltration was performed in a batch mode operation
with recycling of permeate and retentate back to the feed tank to simulate a continuous operation. The permeate ow rate was measured by
measuring the collected permeate in a 500 ml cylinder over a time of
60 s. The ux data were measured 2 times to get an average value for
each measurement. The total test time for each membrane test was
4.5 h. After each experiment, the M10 module was cleaned with
cleaning agents Ultrasil 10 (from Ecolab) for approximately half an
hour at 55 C.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of temperature
In most microltration and ultraltration processes, permeate ux
increases with increasing feed solution temperature [27]. The effect of
temperature on permeate ux may be attributed not only to the effect
of temperature on the physical properties (viscosity, solubility, etc.) of

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Microalgal suspensions
Chlorella pyrenoidosa FACHB-9 cells were cultivated in an open cultivation system, provided by Algae Innovation Center of Denmark. The
fresh cultures were taken in the middle of the exponential growth
phase. Then algae cells were placed in a refrigerator and stored under
darkness at 4 C. The pH of the culture was 9.0 0.5. In order to compare the performance of the tested membranes, all comparative experiments have been carried out with the same cell concentration level,
0.68 g/L.
2.2. Membrane characteristics
Different commercial MF and UF membranes from Alfa Laval Nakskov
A/S were used in the experiments, using Alfa Laval's cross-ow

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of experimental system, showing feed (A), cooling/healing (B),
pump (C), pressure (D), permeate (E), pressure (F), retentate (G), control value (H).

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

feed suspension [28], but also to the complex physical changes that may
be occurring in the membrane as the temperature is changed [29]. For
the solution of Chlorella with relatively high cell density, the impact of
temperature on the permeate ux becomes particularly complex. Temperature plays an important role in the release of EPS (extracellular
polymeric substances), which accumulates on the membrane surface
and causes the ux to decline [30].
Fig. 2 shows the effect of temperature on the permeate ux in
microltration and ultraltration of Chlorella solution. The temperature
of the feed suspension was varied while transmembrane pressure and
cross-ow were kept constant at 1.3 bar, 3.86 m/s (microltration),
and 2.3 bar, 7.72 m/s (ultraltration), respectively. In this process, the
temperature of the feed suspension ranges from 20 C to 28 C, which
is within the normal temperature range of the growth of Chlorella. As
Fig. 2 demonstrates, membrane permeate ux is sensitive to changes
in feed solution temperature. When the solution temperature is 20 C,
the viscosity is higher and the diffusion coefcient is lower, resulting
in a relatively low permeate ux. With increasing temperature, the
ux of the MF and UF membranes also increases. However, as the temperature increases from 24 C to 28 C, the permeate uxes of all MF

439

membranes were similar to each other. It is possible that higher temperatures favor the metabolism of the Chlorella, and thus concentrations of
extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), e.g., proteins and nucleic acids
increase in the feed solution [31]. These substances could adsorb the
membrane surface, leading to the permeate ux decreasing. The optimum temperature for ltration was found to be 24 C, at which point
the best growth state of Chlorella was observed. The change in permeate
ux for all membranes shows similar patterns. Typically ux versus
time curves show a relatively rapid ux decline in the rst 2 h of the
process, followed by a more gradual decrease, until a steady-state ux
has been reached.
3.2. Effect of transmembrane pressure (TMP)
Fig. 3 shows the variation of ux with time under different transmembrane pressures. In most cases, an increase in pressure leads to
an increase of the permeate ux. However, with the microltration
membranes only a slight increase was observed as the transmembrane
pressure increased from 1.3 bar to 1.8 bar. Similar results can be seen
for ultraltration. The uxes increased signicantly from TMP of

Fig. 2. Effect of temperature on permeate ux in cross-ow microltration (MFP2, MFP5 and MFP8) and ultraltration (FS40PP, FS61PP and ETNA10PP). Filtration conditions: TMP =
1.3 bar, cross-ow = 3.86 m/s (microltration); and TMP = 2.3 bar, cross-ow = 7.72 m/s (ultraltration).

440

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

Fig. 3. Effect of transmembrane pressure on permeate ux in cross-ow microltration (MFP2, MFP5 and MFP8) and ultraltration (FS40PP, FS61PP and ETNA10PP). Filtration conditions:
T = 20 C, cross-ow = 5.79 m/s (microltration); and T = 24 C, cross-ow = 7.72 m/s (ultraltration).

1.3 bar to 1.8 bar for UF membranes, but not from 1.8 bar to 2.3 bar.
Therefore we can assume that there is an optimal pressure, after
which further increase in transmembrane pressure will not improve
ux. Higher permeate uxes were observed at the beginning of both
microltration and ultraltration processes, but then the permeate
uxes declined rapidly. The permeate uxes declined more rapidly
with increasing transmembrane pressure. As shown in Fig. 3, although
the initial permeate uxes of the ultraltration membrane at 2.3 bar
was higher than the ux at 1.8 bar, the decline rate of the permeate
ux was faster at 2.3 bar. The permeate ux at 2.3 bar decreased even
further below the ux at 1.8 bar. Such a phenomenon has already
been observed with other biological suspensions (bacteria, apple juice,
etc.) due to the presence of polysaccharides in the feed solution [3234].
Chlorella cells can attach to the membrane surface, which can be
seen by visually checking the fouled membrane surfaces. The attached
cells could release a secretion and EPS [30], which might be enhanced
at higher transmembrane pressure. The higher pressure can add additional resistance to permeation by compressing the Chlorella cells and
EPS into a thicker and denser fouling layer. Further, according to
Makardij [35], at high transmembrane pressure, the membrane pore

size and EPS layer porosity decrease, resulting in increase of the cake
layer and hence, more rapid ux decline.
3.3. Effect of cross-ow velocity
The cross-ow velocity is another important parameter which has
an inuence on microltration and ultraltration performance. Fig. 4
indicates the effects of cross-ow on performance of the membranes.
As the cross-ow velocity increased, the permeate uxes increased,
suggesting that Chlorella and other particles were prevented from
accumulating on the surface of membrane. During the initial stage of
Chlorella ltration, the permeate uxes are seen to be independent of
cross-ow velocity. As shown in Fig. 4, the initial permeate uxes of
microltration and ultraltration (FS40PP and FS61PP) are nearly
identical under different cross-ow velocities. However, as the cake
resistance increased after the rst two-hour process, cross-ow velocity
showed a more pronounced effect on permeate uxes, whereby the
steady-state uxes increased with the cross-ow velocity. This can be
explained by less particles depositing onto the membrane surface at
high cross-ow velocity. ETNA10PP is a surface-modied PVDF

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

441

Fig. 4. Effect of cross-ow velocity on permeate ux in cross-ow microltration (MFP2, MFP5 and MFP8) and ultraltration (FS40PP, FS61PP and ETNA10PP). Filtration conditions: T =
20 C, TMP = 1.3 bar (microltration); and T = 24 C, TMP = 2.3 bar (ultraltration).

membrane, which can reduce fouling by rendering the membrane surface hydrophilic whereby it can be cleaned without using cleaning
agents [26]. The results in Fig. 4 demonstrate that, after a 4-hour ltration run, an average drop of 10.5% in permeate ux for ETNA10PP membrane was observed, while ux drops for FS40PP and FS61PP were 40.7%
and 33.3%, respectively. The membrane fouling degree of ultraltration
is shown in Fig. 5. It is very obvious that the accumulated material
(green in the photos) on the surface of ETNA10PP was much less than
for FS40PP and FS61PP.
3.4. Direct comparison between microltration and ultraltration
To compare the performance between microltration and ultraltration techniques, a longer period experiment (in recirculation mode)
with total 48-hour run was carried out. The highest ux microltration

membrane (MFP8) and the highest ux ultraltration membrane

(FS40PP) and ETNA10PP were tested under optimal operating conditions
(5.79 m/s, 1.8 bar and 24 C). These operating conditions were chosen to
reduce Chlorella cell damage due to ltration and provide suitable surviving conditions for Chlorella. The surface-modied PVDF membrane
ETNA10PP was used here to determine whether it has higher permeate
ux compared with MFP8 and FS40PP in longer period tests due to its
low fouling properties. Fig. 6 shows performance of this experiment
during a 48-hour run. Signicant differences were observed between
the microltration and ultraltration membranes. The MF membrane
exhibited a higher initial permeate ux than the UF membranes. However, a sharp decline in ux was observed for the MF membrane in the
rst three hours of the process, resulting in the permeate ux of MFP8
being similar or only slightly below FS40PP. Such a rapid drop of initial
permeate ux for the MF membrane may be due to the higher initial

442

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

In this study, the volume concentration factor (VCF) is dened as:

VCF V0 =V0 Vt

Fig. 5. Photos of used membranes after 4.5 h run: a. FS40PP; b. FS61PP; c. ETNA10PP.
Green seen on the photos are foulant material. Red seen on ETNA10PP (c) is the color of
membrane itself.

ux of the MF membranes which leads to higher fouling tendency.

However, our results shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4 do not indicate better
performance of UF membranes over MF membranes as reported by
Rossignol [17]. The discrepancy observed in the two studies could be
due to different algal types, different membrane types and different
operating conditions used by two groups. Membrane ux could be
inuenced by many parameters. All experiments we conducted showed
very similar ux level for MF and UF membranes.
Although ETNA10PP exhibited much lower membrane fouling
because of its anti-fouling properties, the steady state ux was in fact
still lower than MFP8 and FS40PP. It was hypothesized that the ux of
this membrane in long period tests may be higher than other membranes due to its low fouling properties. However, the hypothesis was
not proven in this experiment.
3.5. Concentration of Chlorella suspensions
The above ltration experiments in recirculation mode were carried
out to nd the MF or UF membrane with the best performance (highest
permeate ux and best rejection of Chlorella). The nal goal of this
work is to use MF or UF membranes for the concentration of Chlorella
suspensions.

where V0 and Vt are the initial feed volume (32 L) and feed volume at
time t, respectively. The relationship between VCF and permeation
ux was studied. Experiments were performed with the microltration
membrane (MFP8) and ultraltration membranes (FS40PP and
ETNA10PP). The results in Fig. 7 demonstrated that permeate uxes
declined much faster at low Chlorella cell concentrations during the
initial stages of the experiment. As the process continued, a stable ux
was reached at higher Chlorella cell concentrations. It is believed that
the cake layer (or fouling layer) probably became thicker and denser
with increasing Chlorella concentration at high cell concentration
range, and thus reduced permeate ux. A stable ux was observed
when the cake layer did not change at higher cell concentrations.
There is a larger ux drop for MFP8 than the other membranes at the
early stages of the concentration, which can be explained by the larger
pore size of the microltration membrane However, the steady-state
ux seems to be similar for MFP8 and FS40PP, and the ux is slightly
higher than for ETNA10PP. After 130 min of concentration, the feed
volume in the batch tank was decreased from the initial 32 L to 2.8 L,
resulting in a VCF of 11.4.
Since MF membranes have much more open pore structure and
much higher porosity than UF membranes, one would expect that MF
membranes show much higher permeate ux for algae harvesting.
The results in Figs. 6 and 7 show very similar performance of MFP8
(pore size of 0.8 m) and FS40PP (MWCO 100,000), indicating that
the pore size of membranes is not as an important parameter for this
kind of application as originally hypothesized. A possible explanation
for these results is that the fouling layer caused by deposition of algae
cells and EPS was acting as a membrane selective layer [36]. The fouling
layer can be clearly seen in Fig. 5 for FS40PP. The results in this work
further suggest that the fouling layer, as a membrane selective layer, is
similar for MF and UF membranes, implying that pore size and porosity
have little inuence on the formation of the fouling layer. Although
ETNA10PP showed lower permeate ux than MFP8 and FS40PP in
Figs. 6 and 7, the membrane exhibited very low fouling tendency as
the permeate ux was rather stable during the whole ltration period.
The low fouling tendency was further shown by very little deposition
of foulants on the membrane surface, as seen in Fig. 5. In fact, the low
fouling tendency of this membrane can be expected, owing to its hydrophilic membrane surface. The lower permeate ux of ETNA10PP can be
considered to be due to the higher ow resistance of the membrane as
this is a tight (much smaller pore size) UF membrane. It may be

Fig. 6. Direct comparison between microltration (MFP8 and ultraltration membranes (FS40PP, ETNA10PP). Filtration conditions: T = 24 C, TMP = 1.8 bar and cross-ow = 5.79 m/s.

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

443

Fig. 7. Permeate ux versus VCF for microltration (MFP8) and ultraltration (FS40PP, ETNA10PP) membranes. Filtration conditions: T = 24 C, TMP = 1.8 bar and cross-ow =
5.79 m/s.

concluded from our work that membrane materials play a very important role for this application. Membranes with hydrophilic surfaces
will most likely show better performance from the viewpoint of reducing fouling, whereas hydrophobic membranes will experience severe
fouling for algae ltration.

thank Gary Lloyd for proof reading and corrections of the manuscript.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant No. 20976140).

References
4. Conclusion
The ltration and concentration of Chlorella from dilute culture
media and the performance of several commercial MF and UF membranes were evaluated and compared. Flux increased with increasing
temperature of the feed solution. However, above a certain temperature, further increase in temperature didn't improve permeate ux,
most likely because of the release of EPS by Chlorella cells and/or deposition of Chlorella cells. A general trend of increased permeate ux with
increasing TMP was observed. At higher TMP, however, permeate ux
gradually leveled off or even dropped due to the effect of a fouling
(cake) layer development. It was also seen that higher cross-ow velocity can signicantly decrease particles accumulating on the membrane
surface. Although ETNA10PP exhibited much better anti-fouling properties, the steady-state permeate ux of this membrane was not higher
than for MFP8 and FS40PP in a direct comparison test. However, this
is believed to be due to the much lower pore size i.e. MWCO (10,000)
of ETNA10PP rather than limitation due to fouling layer buildup (see
below). Furthermore, the concentration experiments indicate that the
MF membrane did not show higher permeate ux than the UF membranes under the same operation conditions. MF membranes and UF
membranes show similar ux in this work, indicating that pore size
and porosity are not important for this application. This suggests that
the permeate ux of different membranes is controlled by the fouling
layer that acts as the membrane selective layer. Our work also demonstrated that a membrane with hydrophilic surface shows very little
fouling for algae harvesting. The results of ETNA10PP suggest that membrane materials are the most important parameters for reducing fouling
tendency. In future work, we will make analysis on the deposition layer
(or EPS) attached to membrane surfaces to understand the membrane
fouling better.
Acknowledgments
Xuefei Sun wishes to acknowledge the Alfa Laval Nakskov A/S for the
support of the work. Authors would like to thank Jrgen Enggaard
Boelsmand at the Algae Innovation Center of Denmark for providing
algae suspensions and helpful discussions. We would also like to

[1] Q. Hu, C.W. Zhang, M. Sommerfeld, Biodiesel from algae: lessons learned over the
past 60 years and future perspectives, Psychological Society of America Annual
Meeting, University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, Alaska, USA, 2006.
[2] Q. Hu, M. Sommerfeld, E. Jarvis, M. Ghirardi, M. Posewitz, M. Seibert, A. Darzins,
Microalgal triacylglycerols as feedstocks for biofuel production: perspectives and
advances, Plant J. 54 (2008) 621.
[3] Y.-T. Hung, Q.S. Amuda, A.O. Alade, Algae harvest energy conversion, Handb.
Environ. Eng. 11 (723) (2010).
[4] M. Chateaudegat, M. Chinain, N. Cerf, S. Gingras, B. Hubert, E. Dewaillyii, Seawater
temperature, Gambierdiscus spp. variability and incidence of ciguatera poisoning
in French Polynesia, Harmful Algae 4 (2005) 1053.
[5] L.C. Bruce, J. Imberger, The role of zooplankton in the ecological succession of plankton
and benthic algae across a salinity gradient in the Shark Bay solar salt ponds,
Hydrobiologia 626 (2009) 111.
[6] N.K. Singh, D.W. Dhar, Sewage efuent: a potential nutrient source for microalgae,
Proc. Indian Natl. Sci. Acad. 72 (2006) 113.
[7] S. Chinnasamy, A. Bhatnagar, R.W. Hunt, K.C. Das, Microalgae cultivation in a wastewater dominated by carpet mill efuents, Bioresour. Technol. 101 (2009) 3097.
[8] T. Hirooka, Y. Akiyama, N. Tsuji, H. Naqase, K. Hirata, K. Miyamoto, Removal of
hazardous phenols by microalgae under photoautotrophic conditions, J. Biosci.
Bioeng. 95 (2003) 200.
[9] E.B. Sydney, T.E. Da Silva, A. Tokarski, A.C. Novak, J.C. De Carvalho, A.L.
Woiciecohwski, C. Larroche, C.R. Soccol, Screening of microalgae with potential for
biodiesel production and nutrient removal from treated domestic sewage, Appl.
Energy 88 (2011) 3291.
[10] S. Thomas, The economics of micro-algae production and processing into biofuel
faming systems, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, 2006.
[11] L.C. Neves, L.F.M. Silva, L.M.C. Cabral, S.G.F. Leite, V.M. Matta, Effect of ow rate and
transmembrane pressure on permeate ux during ultraltration of residual brine
from squid processing, 2nd Mercosur Congress on Chemical Engineering, 4th
Mercosur Congress on Process Systems Engineering, 2005.
[12] B. Sandhya, T. Satoshi, Microltration membrane fouling and cake behavior during
algal ltration, Desalination 261 (2010) 46.
[13] X.Z. Zhang, Q. Hu, M. Sommerfeld, E. Puruhito, Y.S. Chen, Harvesting algal biomass
for biofuels using ultraltration membranes, Bioresour. Technol. 101 (2010) 5297.
[14] M.T. Hung, C.J. Liu, Microltration for separation of green algae from water,
Biointerfaces 51 (2006) 157.
[15] S. Zou, Y.S. Gu, D.Z. Xiao, C.Y. Tang, The role of physical and chemical parameters on
forward osmosis membrane fouling during algae separation, J. Membr. Sci. 366
(356) (2011).
[16] C.K.W. Chow, S. Panglisch, J. House, M. Drikas, M.D. Bruch, R. Gimbeld, A study of
membrane ltration for the removal of cyanobacterial cells, J. Water Supply Res
Technol. 46 (1997) 324.
[17] N. Rossignol, L. Vandanjon, P. Jaouen, F. Quemeneur, Membrane technology for the
continuous separation microalgae/culture medium: compared performances of
cross-ow microltration and ultraltration, Aquac. Eng. 20 (1991) 191.
[18] A.L. Wei, G.M. Zeng, G.H. Huang, J. Liang, X.D. Li, Modeling of a permeate ux of
cross-ow membrane ltration of colloidal suspensions: a wavelet network
approach, Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 6 (2009) 395.

444

X. Sun et al. / Algal Research 2 (2013) 437444

[19] F.G. Meng, S.R. Chae, A. Drews, M. Kraume, H.S. Shin, F.L. Yang, Recent advances in
membrane bioreactors (MBRs): membrane fouling and membrane material,
Water Res. 43 (2009) 1489.
[20] C.H. Zhang, F.I. Yang, W.J. Wang, B. Chen, Preparation and characterization of
hydrophilic modication of polypropylene non-woven fabric by dip-coating PVA
(polyvinyl alcohol), Sep. Purif. Technol. 61 (2008) 272.
[21] L. Heng, Y.L. Yang, W.J. Gong, X. Li, G.B. Li, Effect of pretreatment by permanganate/
chlorine on algae fouling control for ultraltration (UF) membrane system, Desalination 222 (2008) 74.
[22] J.B. Castaing, A. Mass, M. Ponti, V. Schet, J. Haure, P. Jaouen, Investigating
submerged ultraltration (UF) and microltration (MF) membranes for seawater
pre-treatment dedicated to total removal of undesirable micro-algae, Desalination
253 (2010) 71.
[23] S. Babel, S. Takizawa, A study on membrane fouling due to algal deposition, Water
Sci. Technol. 41 (2000) 327.
[24] N. Rossi, I. Petit, P. Jaouen, P. Legentilhomme, M. Derouiniot, Harvesting of Cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis using inorganic ltration membranes, Sep. Sci.
Technol. 40 (2005) 3033.
[25] W. Liu, Harvesting of Micro-algae by Membrane Filtration, The International
Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes, Amsterdam, 2011.
[26] J. Wei, S.H. Gitte, C.W. Nick, Characterization of a non-fouling ultraltration
membrane, Desalination 192 (2006) 252.
[27] M. Kallioinen, M. Pekkarinen, M. Mnttri, M. Nystrm, N.J. Jutta, Stability of two
different regenerated cellulose ultraltration membrane under varying solution
temperature, Desalination 199 (2006) 204.

[28] Y. Magara, M. Itoh, The effect of operational factors on solid/liquid separation

by ultra-membrane ltration in a biological denitrication system for collected
human excreta treatment plants, Water Sci. Tech. 23 (1991) 1583.
[29] F.A.G. Mattheus, S.S. Shyam, S.A.M. Salha, H.A.B. Rashid, W. Mark, Effect of feed
temperature on permeate ux and mass transfer coefcient in spiral-wound reverse
osmosis systems, Desalination 144 (2002) 367.
[30] A. Drews, C.H. Lee, M. Kraume, Membrane foulinga review on role of EPS,
Desalination 200 (2006) 186.
[31] S. Tsuneda, H. Aikawa, H. Hayashi, A. Yuasa, A. Hirata, Extracellular polymeric
substances responsible for bacterial adhesion onto solid surface, FEMS Microbiol.
Lett. 223 (287) (2003).
[32] N. Rossi, M. Derouiniot-Chaplain, P. Jaouen, P. Legentilhomme, I. Petit, Arthrospira
platensis harvesting with membranes: fouling phenomenon with limiting and
critical ux, Bioresour. Technol. 99 (2008) 6161.
[33] M.K. Darko, S.L. Markov, N.T. Miodrag, Membrane fouling during cross-ow
microltration of Polyporus squamosus fermentation broth, Biochem. Eng. J. 9
(2001) 103.
[34] G.T. Vladisavljevic, P. Vukosavljevic, B. Bukvic, Permeate ux and fouling resistance
in ultraltration of depectinized apple juice using ceramic membranes, J. Food Eng.
60 (2003) 241.
[35] A.A. Makardij, Impact of operating parameters on ux decline in microltration and
ultraltration. Thesis The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, 2002.
[36] N. Thang, F.A. Roddick, L.H. Fan, Biofouling of water treatment membranes: a review
of the underlying causes, monitoring techniques and control measures, Membranes
2 (2012) 804.