Pollutant removal and membrane fouling in an anaerobic submerged membrane bioreactor for real sewage treatment

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 1712-1719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fangyuan Wang ◽  
Jianrong Chen ◽  
Huachang Hong ◽  
Aijun Wang ◽  
Hongjun Lin

Real sewage was continuously treated by a laboratory-scale anaerobic submerged membrane bioreactor (AnSMBR) for over 160 days. Results showed that around 90% of chemical oxygen demand, and 99% of turbidity and total suspended solids in the sewage could be removed by the AnSMBR system. Membrane flux sustained at 11 L/(m2 h) was realized with biogas sparging. Small flocs from sludge deflocculation in the early operational period caused a high membrane fouling rate, and the high specific filtration resistance of the cake layer appeared mostly attributable to the osmotic pressure effect. The performance results were also compared with those in the literature for upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors and aerobic membrane bioreactors for sewage treatment, demonstrating that AnSMBR could provide a desirable alternative for sewage treatment.

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (9) ◽  
pp. 1951-1960 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Cabral ◽  
A. L. Sanson ◽  
R. J. C. F. Afonso ◽  
C. A. L. Chernicharo ◽  
J. C. Araújo

Abstract Two bioreactors were investigated as an alternative for the post-treatment of effluent from an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor treating domestic sewage, aiming at dissolved sulfide and methane removal. The bioreactors (R-control and R-air) were operated at different hydraulic retention times (HRT; 6 and 3 h) with or without aeration. Large sulfide and methane removal efficiencies were achieved by the microaerated reactor at HRT of 6 h. At this HRT, sulfide removal efficiencies were equal to 61% and 79%, and methane removal efficiencies were 31% and 55% for R-control and R-air, respectively. At an HRT of 3 h, sulfide removal efficiencies were 22% (R-control) and 33% (R-air) and methane removal did not occur. The complete oxidation of sulfide, with sulfate formation, prevailed in both phases and bioreactors. However, elemental sulfur formation was more predominant at an HRT of 6 h than at an HRT of 3 h. Taken together, the results show that post-treatment improved the anaerobic effluent quality in terms of chemical oxygen demand and solids removal. However, ammoniacal nitrogen was not removed due to either the low concentration of air provided or the absence of microorganisms involved in the nitrogen cycle.


2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (9) ◽  
pp. 2202-2210
Author(s):  
Jia Liu ◽  
Wei Zuo ◽  
Yu Tian ◽  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
...  

A membrane bioreactor (MBR) coupled with a worm reactor (SSBWR) was designed as SSBWR-MBR for sewage treatment and excess sludge reduction. However, total phosphorus (TP) release caused by worm predation in the SSBWR could increase the effluent TP concentration in the SSBWR-MBR. To decrease the amount of TP excreted, chemical treatment reactor was connected after the SSBWR-MBR to remove the excess phosphorus (P). The effects of chemical treatment at different time intervals on the performance of the SSBWR-MBR were assessed. The results showed that a maximum TP removal efficiency of 21.5 ± 1.0% was achieved in the SSBWR-MBR after chemical treatment. More importantly, a higher sulfate concentration induced by chemical treatment could promote TP release in the SSBWR, which provided further TP removal from the SSBWR-MBR. Additionally, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency of the SSBWR-MBR was increased by 1.3% after effective chemical treatment. In the SSBWR-MBR, the chemical treatment had little effects on NH3-N removal and sludge production. Eventually, chemical treatment also alleviated the membrane fouling in the SSBWR-MBR. In this work, the improvement on TP, COD removal and membrane fouling alleviation was achieved in the SSBWR-MBR using additional chemical treatment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 1352-1359
Author(s):  
Nimeshchandra Vasanji Vashi ◽  
Navinchandra Champaklal Shah ◽  
Kishor Ratilal Desai

Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) process is a popular process for treatment of sewage in India due to its low power requirement. However, UASB system has many limitations in terms of removal of carbon, nutrients and pathogens. This requires post treatment after UASB to meet the treated water quality standards. Current treatment processes adopted for the post-treatment of anaerobically treated sewage, especially the full-scale UASB reactors in Surat, India are presented. Two full scale treatment plants with different UASB post treatment processes viz., Extended Aeration and Moving Bed Biological Reactor (MBBR) are selected for studies. A pilot study was carried out in a full scale Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) to study the performance of Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR) for treatment of UASB treated sewage and the results are reported for period of Three months. Inlet and outlet parameters such as Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), etc. for post UASB biological process are presented. The performance of the SBR process was observed to be better among all the processes studied.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 1308-1317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Chen ◽  
Yulun Nie ◽  
Jiayuan Ji ◽  
Tetsuya Utashiro ◽  
Qian Li ◽  
...  

A submerged anaerobic membrane reactor (SAnMBR) was employed for comprehensive evaluation of sewage treatment at 25 °C and its performance in removal efficiency, biogas production and membrane fouling. Average 89% methanogenic degradation efficiency as well as 90%, 94% and 96% removal of total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and nonionic surfactant were obtained, while nitrogen and phosphorus were only subjected to small removals. Results suggest that SAnMBRs can effectively decouple organic degradation and nutrients disposal, and reserve all the nitrogen and phosphorus in the effluent for further possible recovery. Small biomass yields of 0.11 g mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS)/gCOD were achieved, coupled to excellent methane production efficiencies of 0.338 NLCH4/gCOD, making SAnMBR an attractive technology characterized by low excess sludge production and high bioenergy recovery. Batch tests revealed the SAnMBR appeared to have the potential to bear a high food-to-microorganism ratio (F/M) of 1.54 gCOD/gMLVSS without any inhibition effect, and maximum methane production rate occurred at F/M 0.7 gCOD/gMLVSS. Pore blocking dominated the membrane fouling behaviour at a relative long hydraulic retention time (HRT), i.e. >12 hours, while cake layer dominated significantly at shorter HRTs, i.e. <8 hours.


2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (10) ◽  
pp. 1959-1966 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Syutsubo ◽  
W. Yoochatchaval ◽  
I. Tsushima ◽  
N. Araki ◽  
K. Kubota ◽  
...  

In this study, continuous operation of a pilot-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor for sewage treatment was conducted for 630 days to investigate the physical and microbial characteristics of the retained sludge. The UASB reactor with a working volume of 20.2 m3 was operated at ambient temperature (16–29 °C) and seeded with digested sludge. After 180 days of operation, when the sewage temperature had dropped to 20 °C or lower, the removal efficiency of both total suspended solids (TSS) and total biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) deteriorated due to washout of retained sludge. At low temperature, the cellulose concentration of the UASB sludge increased owing to the rate limitation of the hydrolytic reaction of suspended solids in the sewage. However, after an improvement in sludge retention (settleability and concentration) in the UASB reactor, the process performance stabilized and gave sufficient results (68% of TSS removal, 75% of total BOD removal) at an hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 9.7 h. The methanogenic activity of the retained sludge significantly increased after day 246 due to the accumulation of Methanosaeta and Methanobacterium following the improvement in sludge retention in the UASB reactor. Acid-forming bacteria from phylum Bacteroidetes were detected at high frequency; thus, these bacteria may have an important role in suspended solids degradation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 398-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela C. B. Brito ◽  
Liséte C. Lange ◽  
Vera L. Santos ◽  
Míriam C. S. Amaral ◽  
Wagner G. Moravia

Abstract In this study, commercial baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was employed as a novel inoculum for a membrane bioreactor (MBRy). It was applied to landfill leachate (LFL) treatment to remove recalcitrant organic compounds as well as for the assimilation of recalcitrant compounds, since yeasts have a high ability to break such compounds down. The MBR was inoculated with 10 g L−1 of commercial baker's yeast and was operated at a hydraulic retention time of 48 h and pH of 3.5. The specific air demand based on the membrane area (SADm) was maintained at 0.6 m3 h−1 m−2. The MBRy achieved chemical oxygen demand (COD), color, NH3, and humic substances removal of 68, 79, 68, and 50%, respectively. Furthermore, the MBRy showed lower fouling potential, which can be attributed to the low extracellular polymeric substances production, as the formation of a cake layer was the major mechanism of membrane fouling. The work demonstrated that novel MBR is a promising technology for treating recalcitrant landfill leachate.


2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 2777-2786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meijia Zhang ◽  
Wei Peng ◽  
Jianrong Chen ◽  
Yiming He ◽  
Linxian Ding ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Jose Tavares de Sousa ◽  
Maria Luciana Dias de Luna Luna ◽  
Israel Nunes Henrique Henrique ◽  
Valderi Duarte Leite Leite ◽  
Wilton Silva Lopes Lopes ◽  
...  

The combination of anaerobic pre-treatment and conventional aerobic technologies in a single compact unit has the potential to afford practical, sustainable and low-cost systems for the decentralized treatment of sewage. The aims of the present study were (i) to determine the efficiencies of a single-family compact (SFC) and a multi-family compact (MFC) station in removing organic matter from domestic sewage, and (ii) to investigate the behavior of aerobic intermittent sand filters (ISFs) regarding nitrification. The SFC station consisted of an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor, an anaerobic upflow bed filter and an aerobic ISF, while the MFC station comprised a septic tank and two ISFs. The mean efficiencies for the removal of total chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids and total Kjeldahl nitrogen were, respectively, 90, 93 and 75% for the SFC and 87, 91% and 74% for the MFC with ISFs operated at hydraulic loading rates of 380 L.m-2.day-1. The sand filters produced helminth-free effluents that complied with World Health Organization recommendations for water intended for agricultural reuse, although the geometric mean of E. coli counts (104 CFU.100 mL-1) was somewhat high, implying that the treated water was appropriate for irrigation in low-tech agriculture.


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