Investigation of the anti-fouling performance of an aminated resin

Accumulation of foulants on adsorbents surface was regarded as the key problem inhibiting the repeated use of adsorbents for bio-treated wastewater reclamation. In the present research, the adsorption performance of aminated resin NDA80 was investigated in terms of anti-fouling from the theoretical comparison with its precursor resin NDA79, and its repeated use in practical application. After preloading with tannic acid (TA) as model background contaminants in biologically treated wastewater, the pore volume and specific surface area of the resins decrease obviously due to partial micropore blockage. However, on NDA80, the adsorption affinities (Ka) of phenol and p-nitrophenol increase by 76% and 67% after loaded with 120 μmol/g TA, respectively. Differently, the values of Ka on NDA79 remain almost constant before and after the same loading with TA. The special anti-fouling performance of aminated resin NDA80 was regarded as the contribution of functional groups containing nitrogen on the meso–macro-pore of the resin. The effluent from biologically treated coking wastewater was evaluated by NDA80 on a pilot-scale treatment. The removal of organic contaminants per specific surface area by NDA80 increased by about 35% due to its better anti-fouling property, which is corresponding to the theoretical experiment. The adsorption capacity of NDA80 was almost constant after 71 days of repeated use while the surface area and pore volume of NDA80 decreased by about 30%.

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► Adsorption affinities (Ka) of phenolics on TA-preloaded resin increase drastically.
► Affinities of resin after 71 days of repeated use increased on an adsorption pilot.
► The groups on the meso–macro-pore of resin contributed its anti-fouling performance.