Use of chemical coagulants to control fouling potential for wastewater membrane bioreactor processes.

Chemical coagulation with ferric chloride, alum, and an organic polymer were used to control the fouling potential of mixed liquors for submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes in treating municipal wastewater. Their filterability was evaluated using a submerged hollow fiber ultrafiltration apparatus operated in constant permeate flux mode. The collected transmembrane pressures over filtration time were used to calculate the membrane fouling rates. The results showed that coagulation pretreatment can reduce fouling rates when MBRs were operated above the critical flux. Even though coagulation with the organic polymer formed larger mixed liquor suspended solids particles and had shorter time-to-filtration than those with ferric chloride and alum, the filterability for membrane filtration were similar, indicating that the membrane fouling in MBR systems was mainly controlled by the concentration of smaller colloidal particles.

Toward a high-rate enhanced biological phosphorus removal process in a membrane-assisted bioreactor.

A membrane enhanced biological phosphorus removal (MEBPR) process was studied to determine the impact of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and solids retention time (SRT) on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrogen, and phosphorus from municipal wastewater. The MEBPR process was capable of delivering complete nitrification independent of the prevailing operating conditions, whereas a significant improvement in COD removal efficiency was observed at longer SRTs. In the absence of carbon-limiting conditions, the MEBPR process was able to achieve low phosphorus concentrations in the effluent at increasingly higher hydraulic loads, with the lowest HRT being 5 hours. The MEBPR process was also able to maintain optimal phosphorus removal when the SRT was increased from 12 to 20 days. However, at higher suspended solids concentrations, a substantial increase was observed in carbon utilization per unit mass of phosphorus removed from the influent. These results offer critical insights to the application of membrane technology for biological nutrient removal systems.

Identification of wastewater sludge characteristics to predict critical flux for membrane bioreactor processes.

The effects of sludge characteristics on critical flux were examined using a submerged membrane bioreactor pilot plant operated under different process conditions to treat municipal wastewater. The sludge in the membrane tank was characterized by measuring colloidal particle concentration, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS), temperature, time to filter (TTF) and diluted sludge volume index (DSVI). The colloidal particle concentration was represented by the colloidal total organic carbon (TOC), which is the TOC difference between the filtrate passing through a 1.5 microm pore size filter and the permeate collected from pilot ultrafiltration membrane modules with a pore size of 0.04 microm. The results showed that the critical flux measured by the stepwise flux method was almost solely related to the colloidal TOC despite different sludges tested. In contrast, MLSS was shown to have little impact on the critical flux within the range examined. Neither TTF nor DSVI could be used to reliably predict the critical flux. Furthermore, colloidal TOC can be attributed to soluble EPS, but not bound EPS. Therefore, it is suggested that colloidal TOC be used as a new filterability index for MBR processes in wastewater treatment.

Comparative study of biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes with sedimentation and membrane-based separation.

A membrane-enhanced biological phosphorus removal (MEBPR) process was operated in parallel with a conventional EBPR (CEBPR) process under challenging operating conditions to uncover fundamental differences in their ability to remove chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) from municipal wastewater. Both systems exhibited the same potential to achieve excellent soluble-P removal when a favorable COD to P ratio was maintained in the influent. The MEBPR train generated a superior effluent quality when measured as total P. The CEBPR effluent contained significantly lower levels of nitrates due to the extra denitrification occurring in the sludge blanket of the secondary clarifier. The observed sludge yield in the MEBPR system was estimated to be between 0.23 and 0.28 g VSS/g COD, and this was 15% lower than the CEBPR sludge yield. When the influent volatile fatty acids (VFAs) became limiting, the CEBPR train exhibited better performance in the removal of soluble-P, due to the higher observed sludge yield and an overall greater denitrification activity that led to a more efficient use of VFAs in the anaerobic zone. After experiencing a severe deterioration of the biological P activity in both processes, the MEBPR train exhibited faster recovery than the CEBPR side. In this experimental work, it was demonstrated that an MEBPR process can sustain long-term satisfactory bio-P performance at HRTs as low as 7 h. However, the lower sludge yield and the reduced denitrification capacity are two important factors that impact the design of high rate membrane-assisted biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes.