Centre for Water Research, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, 1 Engineering Drive 2, 117576 Singapore, Singapore.
School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, 11 Fushun Road, Qingdao 266033, PR China.
Bioresour Technol. 2019 Nov;292:121852. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2019.121852. Epub 2019 Jul 22.
Membrane fouling is considered as a main drawback for MBR technology especially treating industrial wastewater. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of fouling in membrane bioreactor (MBR) treating pharmaceutical wastewater with the addition of ferric hydroxide. Two identical lab-scale MBRs, namely, a control MBR (Co-MBR) and an enhanced MBR dosed with ferric hydroxide (Fe-MBR), were operated in parallel. The results demonstrate membrane fouling was retarded by 35% with the addition of iron. Further exploration of membrane fouling mechanisms showed iron addition resulted in increase in biomass floc size, enhancement of bacteria activity and reduction of dissolved organic concentration, especially carbohydrate, biopolymer and low molecular weight compounds concentrations in mixed liquor. There was also lower abundance of bacterial associated with biofilm formation in the Fe-MBR compared with the Co-MBR. These findings collectively contributed to the positive impacts on membrane fouling mitigation.
膜污染被认为是 MBR 技术的一个主要缺点,特别是在处理工业废水时。因此,本研究旨在探讨在膜生物反应器(MBR)中添加氢氧化铁处理制药废水时膜污染的影响。两个相同的实验室规模的 MBR,即对照 MBR(Co-MBR)和添加氢氧化铁的增强 MBR(Fe-MBR),平行运行。结果表明,添加铁可使膜污染延迟 35%。进一步探索膜污染机制表明,铁的添加导致生物量絮体增大,细菌活性增强,溶解有机浓度降低,特别是混合液中碳水化合物、生物聚合物和低分子量化合物的浓度降低。与 Co-MBR 相比,Fe-MBR 中与生物膜形成相关的细菌丰度也较低。这些发现共同有助于减轻膜污染。