Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for treating waste activated sludge: Short term membrane fouling characterization and control tests

Dagnew, Martha; Parker, Wayne; Seto, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2012.06.046

Cited by 28 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The critical flux is defined as the flux below which minimal fouling takes place. The method of determining critical flux was introduced by Field et al, (Dagnew et al, 2012). This study will investigate the effect of incorporating a relaxation cycle of 2 minutes with 8 minutes of permeation on the behaviour of a hollow fibre membrane treating WAS.…”

Section: Prevention and Control Of Foulingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Pre-treatment using Ultrasound and Hydrogen Peroxide on Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge in an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

Joshi¹,

Parker²

2014

proc water environ fed

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The rate of anaerobic digestion (AD) often depends on the rate-limiting hydrolysis step that makes organics available to microorganisms. To achieve efficient conversion of particulates to soluble materials and finally methane, the biomass in the digester must be provided with optimal operational conditions that will allow for biomass retention and substrate metabolism. Two approaches were employed in this study to improve the ultimate biodegradability of waste activated sludge (WAS) -Pre-treatment (PT) and operation using an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (AnMBR).PT of WAS is one way of speeding up hydrolysis. It has been proposed that PT leads to the lysis of cells, which in turn causes the release and solubilisation, and thus availability of intracellular matter to microorganisms for microbial growth and metabolic activities. This study compared the effect of thermal, sonication, and sonication + hydrogen peroxide PT on chemical oxygen demand (COD) solubilisation of WAS. Based on the soluble COD (SCOD) release, it was concluded that combined chemi-sonic treatment resulted in better WAS degradation rather than individual ultrasonic pre-treatment and thermal PT. The highest solubilisation rate was observed at a chemi-sonic PT of 50gH 2 O 2 /kgTS and sonication duration of 60 minutes. At this PT, a COD solubilisation of 40% was observed which was significantly different than PT involving only sonication and no pre-treatment (0.88%) at 95% confidence. Therefore a peroxide-sonic PT was chosen to treat WAS in this study as it was expected to result in the greatest improvement in WAS biodegradability.In addition to PT, biodegradability of WAS can also be improved by coupling PT with an AnMBR. AnMBRs prevent biomass washout by decoupling the solids retention time (SRT) from the hydraulic retention time (HRT). Thus, a long SRT can be used to provide sufficient duration for biological activities without increasing the volume of the reactor. In this study, a 4.5L AnMBR with an HRT and SRT of 3 and 20 days, respectively was used to treat raw and PT WAS. In order to compare the biodegradability of PT and raw WAS, the AnMBR was operated in three phases. Phase 1 was operated with raw WAS, Phase 2 was operated with WAS pretreated with 50 gH 2 O 2 /kgTS and 20 minutes ultrasound (US), and Phase 3 was operated with WAS pre-treated with 50 gH 2 O 2 /kgTS and 60 minutes US. The anaerobic biodegradability of WAS following a combination of ultrasonic pre-treatment and H 2 O 2 addition was significantly improved, with Phase 3 resulting in the greatest improvement. The COD destruction for phases 1, 2, and 3 were 49%, 58%, and 63%, respectively whereas the volatile suspended solids (VSS) destruction for phases 1, 2, and 3 were 46%, 71%, and 77% respectively. Organic Nitrogen (Org-N) destruction increased from 44% to 52% for phases 1 and 2 respectively. A further increase of 18% in Org-N destruction was observed in phase 3. This improvement in biodegradability of WAS was attributed to the high solubilisations of COD, VSS, and ON...

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Section: Prevention and Control Of Foulingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Pre-treatment using Ultrasound and Hydrogen Peroxide on Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge in an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

Joshi¹,

Parker²

2014

proc water environ fed

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“…This value was slightly higher than that from general waste activated sludge (Appels et al, 2008). Membrane fouling is the main problem in MBRs (Dagnew et al, 2012). The TMP and filtration flux were therefore measured ( Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…1(b) shows the temporal changes in the TS and VS concentrations of the digested sludge after sludge feeding. In previous studies, AnMBRs with 20 000-30 000 mg-TS/L of digested sludge were operated using waste activated sludge or kitchen waste slurry (Dagnew et al, 2012;Xiao et al, 2015). We therefore aimed to achieve more than 25 000 mg-TS/L during operation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of anaerobic membrane bioreactor during digestion and thickening of aerobic membrane bioreactor excess sludge

Hafuka

Mimura²,

Ding

et al. 2016

Bioresource Technology

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“…Anaerobic digestion is already beneficial in this regard, by providing potential for energy production and associated operational costs reduction. However, due to large reactor footprints, low hydrolysis and biogas production rates, difficulties in stable process operation, and prethickening requirements to reduce reactor sizes and to increase digestibility (Dagnew et al, 2012), there is still room for improvement of conventional anaerobic sludge digestion processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for sludge digestion: Current status and future perspectives

Abdelrahman

Özgün

Dereli

et al. 2020

Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology

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Excess sewage sludge in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is regarded the key energy source for achieving energy neutral WWTPs. The anaerobic digestion process transforms sludge-organic matter into methane, which subsequently can be used for heat and electricity production. Conventional anaerobic digesters (ADs) have been used for sludge treatment for many decades, requiring high energy and providing poor effluent quality. Anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) technology exhibits a promising option for treatment of high solids concentration streams including sludge. AnMBRs result in an increase in digestion efficiency and enhancement in effluent quality at small footprints. AnMBRs have the potential to reduce capital and operational costs, and produce more energy in comparison to conventional ADs. Thus, energy neutral or positive operation can be achieved with AnMBRs. Besides, nutrient recovery or direct use of permeate will become more feasible in AnMBRs compared to use of sludge supernatant in ADs. However, membrane fouling can limit the feasibility of AnMBRs for sludge treatment, which requires further research. This review paper critically evaluates the current status of AnMBR technology for municipal sludge treatment discussing the effect of different factors on treatment and membrane filtration performances. Furthermore, future research opportunities to enhance applicability of this technology are addressed.

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Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for treating waste activated sludge: Short term membrane fouling characterization and control tests

Cited by 28 publications

References 28 publications

Effect of Pre-treatment using Ultrasound and Hydrogen Peroxide on Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge in an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

Effect of Pre-treatment using Ultrasound and Hydrogen Peroxide on Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge in an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

Performance of anaerobic membrane bioreactor during digestion and thickening of aerobic membrane bioreactor excess sludge

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for sludge digestion: Current status and future perspectives

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