Phosphorus and water recovery by a novel osmotic membrane bioreactor-reverse osmosis system

Wenhai Luo; Faisal I Hai; William E Price; Wenshan Guo; Hao H Ngo; Kazuo Yamamoto; Long D Nghiem

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2015.10.029

Phosphorus and water recovery by a novel osmotic membrane bioreactor-reverse osmosis system

Bioresour Technol. 2016 Jan:200:297-304. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.10.029. Epub 2015 Oct 21.

Authors

Wenhai Luo¹, Faisal I Hai¹, William E Price², Wenshan Guo³, Hao H Ngo³, Kazuo Yamamoto⁴, Long D Nghiem⁵

Affiliations

¹ Strategic Water Infrastructure Laboratory, School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
² Strategic Water Infrastructure Laboratory, School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
³ Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
⁴ Environmental Science Centre, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
⁵ Strategic Water Infrastructure Laboratory, School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. Electronic address: longn@uow.edu.au.

PMID: 26499404
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.10.029

Abstract

An osmotic membrane bioreactor-reverse osmosis (OMBR-RO) hybrid system integrated with periodic microfiltration (MF) extraction was evaluated for simultaneous phosphorus and clean water recovery from raw sewage. In this hybrid system, the forward osmosis membrane effectively retained inorganic salts and phosphate in the bioreactor, while the MF membrane periodically bled them out for phosphorus recovery with pH adjustment. The RO process was used for draw solute recovery and clean water production. Results show that phosphorus recuperation from the MF permeate was most effective when the solution pH was adjusted to 10, whereby the recovered precipitate contained 15-20% (wt/wt) of phosphorus. Periodic MF extraction also limited salinity build-up in the bioreactor, resulting in a stable biological performance and an increase in water flux during OMBR operation. Despite the build-up of organic matter and ammonia in the draw solution, OMBR-RO allowed for the recovery of high quality reused water.

Keywords: Forward osmosis (FO); Microfiltration (MF); Osmotic membrane bioreactor (OMBR); Phosphorus recovery; Reverse osmosis (RO).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bioreactors*
Osmosis
Phosphorus* / chemistry
Phosphorus* / isolation & purification
Sewage / chemistry*
Water / chemistry*
Water Purification / methods*

Substances

Sewage
Water
Phosphorus