Fouling Issues in Membrane Bioreactors (MBRs) for Wastewater Treatment: Major Mechanisms,  Prevention and Control Strategies

Gkotsis, Petros; Banti, Dimitra C.; Peleka, Effrosyni; Zouboulis, Anastasios; Samaras, P.

doi:10.3390/pr2040795

Cited by 106 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 335 publications

(486 reference statements)

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“…The targeted feed streams for the FO process include brackish water, seawater, treated wastewater effluent and industrial wastewater [20,26,27,66,67]. These are impaired water types composed dissolved substances or compounds that can induce membrane fouling and cause a severe decline in permeate flow [23,24,[68][69][70][71].…”

Section: Feed Water Quality and Osmotic Gradientmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forward Osmosis as a Pre-Treatment Step for Seawater Dilution and Wastewater Reclamation

Motsa¹,

Mamba²

2018

Osmotically Driven Membrane Processes - Approach, Development and Current Status

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This chapter presents the exploration of the combined process of wastewater reclamation and seawater dilution using forward osmosis (FO). Wastewater and seawater are the two most abundant water sources that are free of the hydrological cycle and could serve as an alternative potable water source. Forward osmosis was chosen as the an ideal pre-treatment step to dilute seawater prior to desalination at relatively lower energy demand and low fouling propensity. Membrane fouling behavior was studied and investigated using different feed compositions bearing fractions of effluent organic matter (EfOM). The negative surface charge of all organic foulants was reduced by the adsorption of calcium ions. Filtration of feed streams containing single, simple organic foulants revealed that alginate (polysaccharides) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) resulted in significant loss in process performance as a result of permeate flux reduction.The complex mixture of alginate, BSA and humic acid caused severe loss in membrane performance due to dominant favorable synergistic interactions between foulants and between foulants and membrane surface. The forward osmosis process presents a viable alternative for a simple and effective seawater dilution step using wastewater as the feed solution. Process performance can be improved by selecting a foulant resistant membrane with matching flux.

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Section: Feed Water Quality and Osmotic Gradientmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forward Osmosis as a Pre-Treatment Step for Seawater Dilution and Wastewater Reclamation

Motsa¹,

Mamba²

2018

Osmotically Driven Membrane Processes - Approach, Development and Current Status

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“…When GAC was removed on day 63, the membrane module demonstrated a slow/steady fouling, reflected by the low increase of the TMP from 13 kPa on day 63 to 20 kPa on day 98 and then a rapid increase from 20 kPa on day 99 to 30 kPa on day 105. Such TMP variation followed a classical membrane fouling process, in which absorption of soluble microbial products (SMPs) and extracellular polymerase substrate (EPS) could result in a rapid increase in TMP [25]. When GAC was added into the cathodic compartment again on day 106, the TMP did not decrease and remained at 30 kPa for about ten days, suggesting the need for membrane cleaning due to irreversible fouling.…”

Section: à3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cathodic fluidized granular activated carbon assisted-membrane bioelectrochemical reactor for wastewater treatment

Luo

2016

Separation and Purification Technology

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a b s t r a c tA membrane bioelectrochemical reactor (MBER) is a system integrating membrane filtration into microbial fuel cells. To control membrane fouling, fluidized granular activated carbon (GAC) was applied to the cathodic compartment of an MBER, which was examined for contaminant removal and electricity generation with low or medium strength synthetic wastewater. The MBER was operated for more than 160 days and achieved nearly 100% removal of organic compounds, regardless of presence/absence of GAC. However, fluidized GAC alleviated the membrane fouling issue and maintained transmembrane pressure (TMP) between 10 and 15 kPa with 24 g of GAC. The presence of GAC also enhanced current generation from 200.3 to 256.0 A m À3, because some GAC might have functioned as a part of the cathodic electrode through physical contact with the electrode during fluidization. A higher aeration intensity could benefit both membrane fouling control (via scouring effect) and electricity generation (via oxygen supply), but required a higher energy demand. The energy consumption of the MBER including pumping and aeration was estimated to be 0.38 kWh m À3 or 0.25 kWh kgCOD À1, lower than that of conventional membrane bioreactors (MBRs). Those results encourage further investigation and development of the MBER technology to treat wastewater in an energy efficient way.

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“…High pressure size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) or gel filtration chromatography (GFC) coupled with of various detectors such as UV, diode array, refractive index (RI), organic carbon (OC) and static light scattering (SLS) can be applied to investigate MW distribution of EPS [17]. Besides, liquid chromatography − organic carbon detection (LC-OCD) is often employed to acquire MW profile of organic matters in EPS [12,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polarity-Molecular Weight Profile of Extracellular Polymeric Substances in a Membrane Bioreactor: Comparison between Bulk Sludge and Cake Layers

Hong

Taing

Phan

et al. 2018

J. of Wat. & Envir. Tech.

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Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are reported to be the major foulant in membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes. It is important to understand the EPS fractions which cause irreversible fouling to reduce operation cost and energy consumption in MBR. In this study, we developed polarity-molecular weight profiling, in which EPS components were plotted on two-dimensional matrix of its polarity and molecular weight, and applied it to investigate EPS of bulk sludge and cake layers from a labscale MBR. The EPS components were also characterized via three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix (3D-EEM) spectroscopy. The result showed that hydrophilic substances as large as 100 − 670 kDa was found only in loosely-bound EPS (LB-EPS) of bulk sludge but not in that of cake layers nor in permeate. Hydrophobic substances smaller than 20 kDa were mainly found in soluble microbial products (SMP) in bulk sludge. Hydrophilic substances larger than 670 kDa was mainly found in tightly-bound EPS (TB-EPS) of bulk sludge and in LB-and TB-EPS of cake layers. These findings suggest that, after conditioning of micropores of virgin membrane by hydrophobic substances smaller than 20 kDa in SMP, hydrophilic biopolymers as large as 100 − 670 kDa in bulk sludge clog the narrowed micropores inside membrane, causing irreversible fouling.

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Fouling Issues in Membrane Bioreactors (MBRs) for Wastewater Treatment: Major Mechanisms, Prevention and Control Strategies

Cited by 106 publications

References 335 publications

Forward Osmosis as a Pre-Treatment Step for Seawater Dilution and Wastewater Reclamation

Forward Osmosis as a Pre-Treatment Step for Seawater Dilution and Wastewater Reclamation

Cathodic fluidized granular activated carbon assisted-membrane bioelectrochemical reactor for wastewater treatment

Polarity-Molecular Weight Profile of Extracellular Polymeric Substances in a Membrane Bioreactor: Comparison between Bulk Sludge and Cake Layers

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