Impacts of bio-carriers on the characteristics of cake layer and membrane fouling in a novel hybrid membrane bioreactor for treating mariculture wastewater

Jing Zhu; Hong You; How Yong Ng; Zhipeng Li; Binghan Xie; Hongying Chen; Yi Ding; Haili Tan; Feng Liu; Chunpeng Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134593

Impacts of bio-carriers on the characteristics of cake layer and membrane fouling in a novel hybrid membrane bioreactor for treating mariculture wastewater

Chemosphere. 2022 Aug:300:134593. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134593. Epub 2022 Apr 12.

Authors

Jing Zhu¹, Hong You², How Yong Ng³, Zhipeng Li⁴, Binghan Xie², Hongying Chen¹, Yi Ding⁵, Haili Tan², Feng Liu², Chunpeng Zhang⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China; School of Marine Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, Weihai, 264209, China.
³ Environmental Research Institute, National University of Singapore, 117411, Singapore.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China; School of Marine Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, Weihai, 264209, China. Electronic address: lizhipengcn@hit.edu.cn.
⁵ Marine College, Shandong University at Weihai, Weihai, 264209, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Groundwater Resources and Environment (Ministry of Education), Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.

PMID: 35427670
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134593

Abstract

Membrane fouling is generally considered as a major bottleneck to the wide application of membrane bioreactor (MBR) for high saline mariculture wastewater treatment. Though numerous researches have investigated the membrane fouling of MBR combined with bio-carriers, few studies reveal the impacts of bio-carriers on the characteristics of cake layer and the mechanism of bio-carriers alleviating membrane fouling. In this study, two systems, namely carriers-enhanced MBR (R1) and conventional MBR (R2) were parallel operated, drawing a conclusion that bio-carriers effectively improved the characteristics of cake layer, thus mitigating membrane fouling. Fluorescence excitation emission matrix (EEM) analysis indicated that bio-carriers reduced the adhesion of proteins and humic acid-like materials on membrane surface. Molecular weight (Mw) distribution suggested that soluble microbial products (SMP) with small Mw (6-20 kDa) and biopolymers in extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) (50-300 kDa) was easier to accumulate on membrane surface in R2. The above results indicated that the presence of bio-carriers could effectively reduce the attachment of these organics on membrane surface, contributing to a larger porosity of cake layer and thus mitigating membrane fouling. Meanwhile, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) clarified that more components were present in R2 than R1. Moreover, the majority of compounds in the SMP were present in both systems, while only 14 compounds in the EPS were the same between R1 and R2. Noticeably, certain aromatics only existed in R2, suggesting that bio-carriers effectively reduced the accumulation of recalcitrant materials, especially aromatics. These results revealed that bio-carriers shifted the precise composition of cake layers.

Keywords: Bio-carriers; Cake layer; High saline mariculture wastewater; Membrane bioreactor (MBR); Membrane fouling.

MeSH terms

Bioreactors
Humic Substances
Membranes, Artificial
Sewage
Wastewater* / chemistry
Water Purification*

Substances

Humic Substances
Membranes, Artificial
Sewage
Waste Water