Effect of membrane pore size, coagulation time, and coagulant dose on virus removal by a coagulation-ceramic microfiltration hybrid system

We studied virus removal from spiked river water by an in-line coagulation-ceramic microfiltration hybrid system to investigate the effects of (1) coagulant dose (0.54, 1.08, and 1.62 mg Al/L), (2) pore size of the MF membrane (0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 μm), and (3) coagulation time (1.1, 2.4, and 60 s). We found that (1) coagulant dose strongly affected virus removal. Whereas 7.4 log removal was achieved with 1.62 mg Al/L PACl dosing, only 2.8 log removal was observed with 0.54 mg Al/L; thus, the larger the coagulant dose, the greater the virus removal. (2) Pore size of the MF membrane also affected virus removal: pore sizes of 0.5 and 1.0 μm showed about 1 log less removal than the 0.1-μm pore-size MF membrane. (3) Coagulation time slightly affected virus removal: the longer the coagulation time, the greater the reduction in virus level, but the effect was not large. Overall, the combination of in-line coagulation prior to microfiltration enables much shorter coagulation times than in conventional treatment plants: dosing with at least 1.08 mg Al/L PACl in the hybrid system allowed the coagulation time to be only 2.4 s.