Enhanced anaerobic digestion performance and sludge filterability by membrane microaeration for anaerobic membrane bioreactor application.

Slow dissolution/hydrolysis of insoluble/macromolecular organics and poor sludge filterability restrict the application potential of anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR). Bubble-free membrane microaeration was firstly proposed to overcome these obstacles in this study. The batch anaerobic digestion tests feeding insoluble starch and soluble peptone with and without microaeration showed that microaeration led to a 65.7-144.8% increase in methane production and increased critical flux of microfiltration membrane via driving the formation of large sludge flocs and the resultant improvement of sludge settleability. The metagenomic and bioinformatic analyses showed that microaeration significantly enriched the functional genes and bacteria for polysaccharide and protein hydrolysis, microaeration showed little negative effects on the functional genes involved in anaerobic metabolisms, and substrate transfer from starch to peptone significantly affected the functional genes and microbial community. This study demonstrates the dual synergism of microaeration to enhance the dissolution/hydrolysis/acidification of insoluble/macromolecular organics and sludge filterability for AnMBR application.

Measuring the activity of heterotrophic microorganism in membrane bioreactor for drinking water treatment.

In order to quantify the activity of heterotrophic microorganism in membrane bioreactor (MBR) for drinking water treatment, biomass respiration potential (BRP) test and 2,3,5-triphenyl tetrazolium chloride-dehydrogenase activity (TTC-DHA) test were introduced and modified. A sludge concentration ratio of 5:1, incubation time of 2h, an incubation temperature that was close to the real operational temperature, and using a mixture of main AOC components as the substrate were adopted as the optimum parameters for determination of DHA in drinking water MBR. A remarkable consistency among BDOC removal, BRP and DHA for assessing biological performance in different MBRs was achieved. Moreover, a significant correlation between the BRP and DHA results of different MBRs was obtained. However, the TTC-DHA test was expected to be inaccurate for quantifying the biomass activity in membrane adsorption bioreactor (MABR), while the BRP test turned out to be still feasible in that case.