Influence of different biofilm carriers on the operation and membrane fouling of submerged membrane bioreactors

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIt has been reported that the combination process of biofilm and submerged membrane bioreactors (MBRs) can mitigate membrane fouling. In this study, the influence of using three different biofilm carriers (fixed rope carrier, moving granular carrier and moving sponge carrier) on the operation and membrane fouling of MBRs was investigated. Using rope or sponge carriers with MBR processes improved the removal efficiency of nitrogen via the creation of an anoxic part inside the carriers. However, membrane fouling became very severe when rope carriers were used. Using granular or sponge carriers effectively mitigated membrane fouling because they mechanically cleaned the membrane surface. The cake/gel layer on the membrane surface was perfectly removed by granular or sponge carriers. However, the deterioration of the filterability of the mixed liquor suspensions was significant with granular carriers, leading to the evolution of physically irreversible fouling, whereas such deterioration was insignificant with the sponge carrier. The characteristics of the soluble microbial products (SMP) significantly varied depending on the types of carriers used, which could influence the filterability of mixed liquor suspensions and the development of irreversible membrane fouling.

Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) membrane BioReactor: The influence of the operational parameters

“…Furthermore, a significant R PB increase was achieved in Phase II, up to 13%. Such a result suggested that the C/N variation in Phase II determined the variation of the activated sludge features (e.g, increased production of SMPc) which have likely promoted an increase of membrane fouling due to pore blocking (Kurita et al, 2016).…”

Biological Treatment for Greywater Reclamation

“…To address membrane fouling, moving bed biocarriers may be added directly into the activated sludge of a conventional MBR, a configuration commonly referred to as a hybrid membrane bioreactor (HMBR). The biocarriers provide mechanical scouring of the membrane surface, which reduces the thickness of the cake layer and helps to restore permeability during operation (Deng et al, 2014;Kurita et al, 2016;Nguyen et al, 2016). The influence of the biocarriers on the characteristics of the sludge has also been shown to reduce fouling, in some instances, by up to 40% (Palmarin and Young, 2019b).…”

The Influence of Different Operation Conditions on the Treatment of Mariculture Wastewater by the Combined System of Anoxic Filter and Membrane Bioreactor

“…The membrane fouling mitigation mechanism of biological carriers could be divided into two categories: on the one hand, biological carriers, especially moving carriers, exert a mechanical scouring effect on the membrane surface [23]; on the other hand, the carrier improves the characteristics of the sludge mixture through biological immobilization and stabilization [24]. In recent years, many researchers carried out research on the membrane pollution mechanism of different forms of biological carriers in MBR, which laid a foundation for the application of biological carriers to alleviate MBR membrane pollution [23,25].…”