Reverse osmosis (RO) membranes are susceptible to silica scaling, resulting in irreversible degradation of membrane performance. This work covered the fabrication of MIL-101(Fe) for silicic acid adsorption to alleviate the silica scaling of RO membranes. The effect of pH, mixing time and initial concentration on silicic acid adsorption of MIL-101(Fe) was appraised in detail. The adsorption experiments demonstrated that MIL-101(Fe) possessed an excellent adsorption ability for silicic acid with the maximum adsorption capacity reaching 220.1 mgSiO2·g-1. Data fitting confirmed the pseudo-second-order equation and Freundlich equation were consistent with silicic acid adsorption on MIL-101(Fe). Finally, a simulated anti-scaling experiment was carried out using a feed solution pretreated by MIL-101(Fe) adsorption, and the permeance exhibited a much lower decline after 24 h filtration, confirming that MIL-101(Fe) exhibits an excellent application potential for silica-scale mitigation in RO systems.
Keywords: MIL-101(Fe) MOF; adsorption; pretreatment; reverse osmosis; silicic acid removal.