A review on anaerobic membrane bioreactors for enhanced valorization of urban organic wastes: Achievements, limitations, energy balance and future perspectives

Yisong Hu; Xuli Cai; Runda Du; Yuan Yang; Chao Rong; Yu Qin; Yu-You Li

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153284

A review on anaerobic membrane bioreactors for enhanced valorization of urban organic wastes: Achievements, limitations, energy balance and future perspectives

Sci Total Environ. 2022 May 10:820:153284. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153284. Epub 2022 Jan 20.

Authors

Yisong Hu¹, Xuli Cai², Runda Du³, Yuan Yang⁴, Chao Rong⁵, Yu Qin³, Yu-You Li⁶

Affiliations

¹ Key Lab of Northwest Water Resource, Environment and Ecology, MOE, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, PR China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
² XAUAT UniSA An De College, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, PR China.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
⁴ Key Lab of Northwest Water Resource, Environment and Ecology, MOE, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, PR China.
⁵ Department of Frontier Sciences for Advanced Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 6-6-20 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan.
⁶ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan; Department of Frontier Sciences for Advanced Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 6-6-20 Aoba, Aramaki-Aza, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. Electronic address: gyokuyu.ri.a5@tohoku.ac.jp.

PMID: 35066041
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153284

Abstract

Sustainable urban development is threatened by an impending energy crisis and large amounts of organic wastes generated from the municipal sector among others. Conventional waste management methods involve greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and limited resource recovery, thus necessitating advanced techniques to convert such wastes into bioenergy, bio-fertilizers and valuable-added products. Research and application experiences from different scale applications indicate that the anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) process is a kind of high-rate anaerobic digester for urban organic wastes valorization including food waste and waste sludge, while the research status is still insufficiently summarized. Through compiling recent achievements and literature, this review will focus on the following aspects, including AnMBR treatment performance and membrane fouling, technical limitations, energy balance and techno-economic assessment as well as future perspectives. AnMBR can enhance organic wastes treatment via complete retention of functional microbes and suspended solids, and timely separation of products and potential inhibitory substances, thus improving digestion efficiency in terms of increased organics degradation rates, biogas production and process robustness at a low footprint. When handling high-solid organic wastes, membrane fouling and mass transfer issues can be the challenges limiting AnMBR applications to a wet-type digestion, thus countermeasures are required to pursue extended implementations. A conceptual framework is proposed by taking various organic wastes disposal and final productions (permeate, biogas and biosolids) utilization into consideration, which will contribute to the development of AnMBR-based waste-to-resource facilities towards sustainable waste management and more economic-environmental benefits output.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Anaerobic membrane bioreactor; Inhibition substance; Membrane fouling; Renewable bioenergy; Urban organic wastes.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Anaerobiosis
Bioreactors
Food
Methane
Refuse Disposal*
Sewage
Waste Disposal, Fluid* / methods
Wastewater

Substances

Sewage
Waste Water
Methane