**Author details**

effect of different pore sizes and dead-end and pseudo cross-flow filtration modes on the biofouling during filtration. In subsequent work, they also reported that pore tortuosity and secondary flows have a significant impact on biofouling formation in the mimic system [33]. In the pseudo filtration mode, they did not work on the effect of pressure difference on the

Biswas et al. [30] designed a microfluidic membrane mimic by using photolithography technique to investigate the biofouling under different flow condition. The minimum pore size considered was 10 μm and the micropillars were distributed in a staggered pattern. **Figure 6** shows the schematic of their microfluidic device with the mimic membrane structure [30]. Transparent PDMS microsystem is used to mimic the membrane to study the bacteria transfer in the porous interface. The diameter and depth (in z-direction) of the micropillars are 50 μm. Their primary focus was to study the deformation mechanism of bacterial streamer that occur at the downstream location of the membrane during filtration process. They did not focus on the effect of pressure on the biofouling formation. **Table 2** shows a summary of different microfluidic mem-

Membrane processes have been widely used in various industries for water and gas treatment. Pressure-driven membrane processes for water treatment are typically categorized by their rejection ability into MF, UF, NF, and RO. Biofouling on the membrane surface is the most severe fouling among all fouling phenomena including colloidal fouling, scaling, and organic material fouling. The dynamic behavior and viscoelastic nature of biofouling make it more complicated. Hence, it is very important to observe the real-time phenomenon that is occurring during biofouling. Microfluidic devices have therefore become essential tools to study the biological growth in a flow regime. Integrating membranes with microfluidic devices has become very popular over the past decade. There are several ways to incorporate membrane into the microfluidic device. The commercial membrane can be bonded to the device directly, or the membrane can be fabricated as a part of a fabrication process. Microfluidic devices equipped with membranes have been widely used in the medical application to study the complex permeability of macromolecular, drug or other protein. Such devices have recently used to study the fouling phenomenon in porous media. In this chapter, a thorough literature review was also provided about the microfluidic membrane

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA). AK acknowledges support from the Saroj Poddar Young

brane fabrication techniques with pore information and their application.

biofouling formation during filtration.

**5. Conclusion**

304 Microfluidics and Nanofluidics

filtration for biofouling study.

**Acknowledgements**

Investigator Grant.

Ishita Biswas1 , Aloke Kumar<sup>2</sup> and Mohtada Sadrzadeh<sup>1</sup> \*

\*Address all correspondence to: sadrzade@ualberta.ca

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-367 Donadeo Innovation Center for Engineering, Advanced Water Research Lab (AWRL), University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
