AWWA MTC95038

Pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (Py-GC/MS) has the ability to elucidate natural organic matter characteristics. Pyrolysis is used to thermally cleave organic molecules into volatile fragments that are then separated by gas chromatography and identified by mass spectroscopy. This method categorizes natural organic matter in terms of polysaccharides, proteins, polyhydroxyaromatics, and aminosugars. The fractions are calculated relative to a known standard mixture of dextran, bovine serum albumin, cellulose acetate, and Fluka humic acid. A simple empirical algorithm was developed for computing relative peak areas among the various classes of biopolymers. The objective of this research is to relate the productivity of membrane systems that treat different waters, to natural organic characteristics as determined by Py-GC/MS. Membrane studies were completed with a cellulose acetate membrane that had a nominal molecular-weight cutoff of 500 Daltons (Amicon YC05), and a thin-film composite polyamide membrane (Fluid Systems TFCS) that had a nominal molecular-weight cutoff of 200 Daltons. Waters from the Ohio River (southwest Ohio), Harsha Lake (southwest Ohio), and Manatee Lake (Florida) were used. The three waters were filtered before use with a 0.45 um filter.

Product Details

Published:

01/01/1995

ISBN(s):

0898678153

Number of Pages:

23

File Size:

1 file , 790 KB