화학공학소재연구정보센터
홈 로그인 로그아웃 연락처 사이트맵
Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol.94, 188-194, February, 2021
DOI10.1016/j.jiec.2020.10.037  Export Citation
Development of a quorum quenching-column to control biofouling in reverse osmosis water treatment processes
Seonki Lee1, Huijuan Xu1, Scott A. Rice2, 3, Tzyy Haur Chong1, 4, †, and Hyun-Suk Oh5, †
  • 1Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 2Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 3The School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 4School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 5Department of Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University of Science & Technology, Republic of Korea
E-mail:,
Biofouling is recognized as one of the most problematic fouling types in reverse osmosis (RO) processes and lead to high energy requirements and operating costs. Over the past decade, many studies on membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems for wastewater applications demonstrated that disrupting cell-cell communications among bacteria, called quorum quenching (QQ), is a promising approach to inhibit biofouling of membranes. Here, we developed the QQ-column as a novel strategy to control biofouling in RO systems. The QQ-column was prepared by incorporating a recombinant bacterial QQ strain into hydrogel beads and embedding these beads inside a column. The QQ-column was installed upstream of the RO module to degrade N-acyl homoserine lactone, a quorum sensing (QS) signal, from the feed in a laboratory-scale RO system operating in total recycle mode. The QQ-column reduced the concentrations of signal molecules by ∼29% in an RO system and mitigated biofilm formation (38.6% reduction of cell number) on the membrane, consequently reducing the transmembrane pressure by 50.1%. These results demonstrate that integrating QQ bacteria into columns is a practical method to control biofouling in RO systems.
Keywords:Quorum sensing;Quorum quenching;Biofouling;Reverse osmosis;Water reclamation
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