The evaluation of fouling behavior, including biofouling, is crucial to increase efficiency in the reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination process (SDP). This paper reports on biofouling behavior in seawater in the SDP, detected by monitoring intracellular, extracellular, and total adenosine triphosphates (ATPs) in the cross-flow RO filtration system as bacterial activity tracers. The first-stage ultrafiltration (UF) treatment of raw seawater reduced the ATP range to approximately 25%, while the ATP concentration in seawater did not decrease significantly on average between the subsequent four stages until the RO membrane treatment. The results demonstrated temporal variation of ∆ATPs, the deference in ATPs between in RO concentrated water and in RO feed water, occurs randomly, as the membrane fouling index, evaluated from pressure measurements, increases to the level of fouling that requires cleaning. The significant increase in ∆ATPs despite a residence time of only approximately fifteen seconds over the RO module reflects bacteria cell detachment from biofilm. The large reduction in ∆ATPs reflects bacteria cell adhesion and biofilm growth on RO membrane surfaces. It is concluded that the temporal increase and decrease in ∆ATP in RO concentrated water capture the dynamic biofouling behavior and the formation process of biofilm on RO membrane surfaces.

污垢行为的评估，包括生物污垢，对于提高反渗透 (RO) 海水淡化过程 (SDP) 的效率至关重要。本文报告了 SDP 中海水中的生物污染行为，通过监测错流 RO 过滤系统中的细胞内、细胞外和总三磷酸腺苷 (ATP) 作为细菌活性示踪剂来检测。原始海水的第一级超滤 (UF) 处理将 ATP 范围降低到约 25%，而海水中的 ATP 浓度在随后的四个阶段之间平均没有显着降低，直到 RO 膜处理。结果表明∆ 的时间变化ATP，即 RO 浓缩水和 RO 给水中 ATP 的差异，随机发生，因为从压力测量中评估的膜污染指数增加到需要清洁的污染水平。尽管在 RO 模块上的停留时间只有大约 15 秒，但∆ ATP的显着增加反映了细菌细胞与生物膜的分离。∆ ATP的大幅减少反映了 RO 膜表面上的细菌细胞粘附和生物膜生长。得出的结论是，反渗透浓水中∆ ATP的时间增加和减少捕获了动态生物污染行为和反渗透膜表面生物膜的形成过程。