Transparent exopolymer particle (TEP) fouling of ultrafiltration membrane systems

An abundant form of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) called transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) was recently regarded by Berman and Holenberg (T. Berman and M. Holenberg, Don't fall foul of biofilm through high TEP levels, Filtrat. Separat., 42 (2005), 30–32) as a major initiator of biofilm formation on membrane surfaces, which can eventually lead to biofouling. The TEP method applied here was an adapted version of the spectrophotometric technique developed by Passow and Alldredge (U. Passow and A.L. Alldredge, A dye-binding assay for the spectrophotometric measurement of transparent exopolymer particles (TEP), Limnol. Oceanogr., 40(7) (1995) 1326–1335). The main modifications were to the calibration procedure. TEP can be visualized by staining with alcian blue, a dye specific for acidic polysaccharides. The amount of TEP can be semi-quantified by measuring the absorbance of the dye that complexed with polysaccharides in water samples. Since TEP is a very complex polysaccharide, a commercially ...