Create wq
Lab. on Chemical Redox Acceleration Technologies for Water Quality



Journal
Alleviation of membrane fouling in a submerged membrane bioreactor with electrochemical oxidation mediated by in-situ free chlorine generation | |
---|---|
Year of publication | 2016 |
Title of paper | Alleviation of membrane fouling in a submerged membrane bioreactor with electrochemical oxidation mediated by in-situ free chlorine generation |
Author | Chong Min Chung, Tomohiro Tobino, Kangwoo Cho*, and Kazuo Yamamoto |
Publication in journal | Water Research |
Status of publication | accepted |
Vol | 96 |
Link | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135416301683 1722회 연결 |
The control of membrane fouling is still the biggest challenge that membrane bioreactor (MBR) for wastewater treatment faces with. In this report, we evince that an in-situelectrochemical free chlorine generation is effective for membrane fouling mitigation. An electrochemical oxidation (EO) apparatus with perforated Ti/IrO2 anodes and Ti/Pt cathodes was integrated into a conventional MBR with microfiltration module (EO-MBR). The membrane fouling characteristics of EO-MBR fed with synthetic wastewater were monitored for about 2 months in comparison to control MBRs. In the EO-MBR at a direct current density of 0.4 mA/cm2, the frequency of membrane fouling when the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) reached 30 kPa was effectively reduced by 40% under a physical membrane cleaning regime. The evolution patterns of TMP together with hydraulic resistance analysis based on resistance-in-series model indicated that the electrochemically generated active chlorine alleviated the physically irremovable membrane fouling. Further analysis on extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) of sludge cake layer (SCL) revealed significant reductions of protein contents in soluble EPS and fluorescence emission intensities from humic acids and other fluorophores in bound EPS, which in-turn would decrease the hydrophobic accumulation of organic foulants on membrane pores. The chlorine dosage from the EO apparatus was estimated to be 4.7 mg Cl2/g MLVSS/day and the overall physicochemical properties (bio-solids concentration, floc diameter, zeta-potential) as well as the microbial activity in terms of specific oxygen utilization rate and removal efficiency of dissolved organic carbon (>97%) were not affected significantly. A T-RFLP (terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism) analysis suggested noticeable shifts in microbial community both in mixed liquor and sludge cake layer. Consequently, our electrochemical chlorination would be an efficient fouling control strategy in membrane-based water treatment processes where additional electricity consumption and cathodic scale deposition are not of serious concerns.
|