To further determine the fouling behavior of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on different hydrophilic PVDF ultrafiltration (UF) membranes over a range of pH values, self-made atomic force microscopy (AFM) colloidal probes were used to detect the adhesion forces of membrane–BSA and BSA–BSA, respectively. Results showed that the membrane–BSA adhesion interaction was stronger than the BSA–BSA adhesion interaction, and the adhesion force between BSA–BSA-fouled PVDF/PVA membranes was similar to that between BSA–BSA-fouled PVDF/PVP membranes, which indicated that the fouling was mainly caused by the adhesion interaction between membrane and BSA. At the same pH condition, the PVDF/PVA membrane–BSA adhesion force was smaller than that of PVDF/ PVP membrane–BSA, which illustrated that the more hydrophilic the membrane was, the better antifouling ability it had. The extended Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (XDLVO) theory predicts that the polar or Lewis acid–base (AB) interaction played a dominant role in the interfacial free energy of membrane–BSA and BSA–BSA that can be affected by pH. For the same membrane, the pH values of a BSA solution can have a significant impact on the process of membrane fouling by changing the AB component of free energy.
In this study, super-fine powdered activated carbon (SPAC) has been proposed and investigated as a novel catalyst for the catalytic ozonation of oxalate for the first time. SPAC was prepared from commercial granular activated carbon (GAC) by ball milling. SPAC exhibited high external surface area with a far greater member of meso- and macropores (563% increase in volume). The catalytic performances of activated carbons (ACs) of 8 sizes were compared and the rate constant for pseudo first-order total organic carbon removal increased from 0.012 min–1 to 0.568 min–1 (47-fold increase) with the decrease in size of AC from 20 to 40 mesh (863 mm) to SPAC (~1.0 mm). Furthermore, the diffusion resistance of SPAC decreased 17-fold compared with GAC. The ratio of oxalate degradation by surface reaction increased by 57%. The rate of transformation of ozone to radicals by SPAC was 330 times that of GAC. The results suggest that a series of changes stimulated by ball milling, including a larger ratio of external surface area, less diffusion resistance, significant surface reaction and potential oxidized surface all contributed to enhancing catalytic ozonation performance. This study demonstrated that SPAC is a simple and effective catalyst for enhancing catalytic ozonation efficacy.
