• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.543-551
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• 2017

Membrane fouling in membrane bioreactor (MBR) remains a primary challenge for its wider application. The focus of this study to investigate the influence of iron distribution in activated sludge on gel layer fouling in MBR. Significant reduction in the transmembrane pressure (TMP) rise rates was observed in the presence of iron as result of retarding the gel layer formation time. The spatial distribution of iron had a significant impact on the stratification structure of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) fractions, such as proteins (PN) and polysaccharides (PS). A mitigation of PN or PS from the supernatant to the EPS inner layers was observed in the presence of iron. Compared with the control reactor, the reduction in PN and PS of the supernatant and lower PN/PS rates of the LB-EPS were beneficial to decrease the membrane fouling potential during the gel layer formation. Consequently, the iron addition managed to control gel layer fouling could be a useful strategy in MBR.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.529-545
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• 2013

With the increasing concern on climate changes and energy shortage, anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR) become a promising alternative to aerobic processes for domestic wastewater treatment. Two major advantages of AnMBRs are energy production and sludge reduction. Recently, several different configurations of AnMBRs have been proved to produce high quality effluent at reasonable hydraulic retention time and ambient temperature. One of the major problems of the AnMBR is membrane fouling control, and some solutions are already suggested. Other problems to be solved before the full application of the AnMBR are recovery of dissolved methane, management of residual nutrients and sulfide. Considering the potential advantages and future technology development, AnMBR will become major domestic wastewater treatment process in near future.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.343-351
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• 2018

As membrane fouling is based on various factors, it is a complex phenomenon that is hard to estimate. This study investigated membrane fouling in a thermophilic jet loop membrane bioreactor (JLMBR). With this purpose, four different empirical membrane fouling models with different sludge retention times were applied on the flow data obtained in the system. As a result of the model implementation, it was found for all sludge retention times that, standard blocking is effective in the first 1.5 hours of filtration, while cake filtration was dominant in the remaining duration. Additionally, it was observed that as the sludge retention time increases, membrane fouling rate decreases.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2018

Microscopic examination of the activated sludge and morphological characterization of the flocs provides detailed information about the treatment process. The aim of this study is to investigate the morphological parameters of flocs obtained from a thermophilic jet loop membrane bioreactor (JLMBR) in different sludge retention times (SRTs), considering EPS and SMP concentration, hydrophobicity, zeta potential. The results showed that irregularity decreased with the increasing SRT. The compactness value was calculated to be less than 1 for all SRTs. However, the sludge had a more compact structure when the SRT increased. Zeta potential increased whereas hydrophobicity and floc size reduced, with increasing SRT. Furthermore, 2-D porosity calculated using the hole ratio was higher at greater SRTs. Hence, there was a significant correlation between the results obtained using the imaging technique and operation conditions of thermophilic JLMBR.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.111-114
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• 2003

The dynamics of microbial community structure of the various domestic wastewater treatment processes were examined using a novel approach of quinone profiles. The compositions of microbial quinone of 5 sites fer plant and lab-scale activated sludge were analyzed. More than 14 kinds of quinones were observed in the activated sludges tested in this study. The microbial community structure of the plant activated sludge processes a little differed from that of the lab-scale submerged MBR systems. The dominant quinones were UQ-8, UQ-10 followed $MK-8(H_4)$, MK-7 and MK-6. The molar ratio of ubiquinones to menaquinones (UQ/MK) changed from 0.81 to 1.9, indicating that aerobic bacteria dominated the microbial community of the activated sludge examined. The microbial diversity of the activated sludges calculated from the all quinone compositions was 9.5-11.9 and the microbial equability of the activated sludges was 0.64-0.79.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.95-106
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• 2011

Even though MBR processes have many advantages such as high quality effluents, a small footprint and convenience for operation compared to conventional activated sludge processes, there are some shortcomings in terms of the cost and potential fouling incident that keeps MBR (Membrane bioreactor) processes from being widely applied. To reduce these problems, PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) flat sheet membranes that have excellent permeability and durability were tested instead of PVDF (Polyvinylidene fluoride) membrane which is being used widely in water treatment. Low concentration of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was also added into the membrane modules in order to prevent the membrane fouling as well as to provide the alkalinity. With conditions mentioned above, a pilot-scale MBR system based on the MLE (Modified Ludzack Ettinger) process was operated at flux of 40 $L/m^{2}/hr$ and over 15,000 mg/L MLSS concentration for about 8 months. And coagulant(alum) was added into the membrane tank to remove phosphorus. Although the more coagulant is added the more effectively phosphorus is removed, that can lead to fouling for a long operation(Ronseca et al.,2009). By the way there is a research that fouling grow up after stopping injection of coagulant(Holbrook, 2004). Stable operation of MBR systems was achieved without major chemical cleaning and the effluent quality was found to be good enough to comply with the treated waste water quality regulations of the Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.383-390
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• 2011

In this study, a process combined biofiltration with sulfur-utilizing autotrophic denitrification and membrane separation was proposed to examine the efficiency of nitrogen removal. As an experimental device, hollow-fiber module was installed in the center of reactor to generate the flux forward sulfur layer in the cylinder packed with granular sulfur. In addition, a simple module was installed in activated sludge aeration tank which inside and outside of sulfur-using denitrification module was covered with microfilter and the module was considered as an alternative of clarifier. The experiment for developing new MBR process was carried out for three years totally. As the results of first two-year experiment, successful nitrogen removal performance was revealed with lab-scale test and pliot scale plant using artificial wastewater and actual plating wastewater. In this year, pilot scale test using actual domestic wastewater was performed to prove field applicability. As the results, high-rate nitrogen removal performance was confirmed with about 0.19 kg ${NO_3}^--N/m^3$ day of rate. Also significant fouling and pressure increase were not found during the experiment. And, the production ratio of sulfate and the consumption ratio of alkalinity showed a slightly higher value about 311 mg ${SO_4}^{2-}/L$ and 369 mg $CaCO_3$/L, respectively. In conclusion, the developed MBR process can be utilized as an alternative for retrofiting existing wastewater plants as well as new construction of advanced sewage wastewater treatment plants, with cost-effective merit.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2008

In this study, we tried to solve membrane fouling with membranes made by fine nano-particle in MBR process. And we confirmed good fouling resistance in pilot test. In this test, we confirmed our membrane with titania out-standing quality by testing in the pilot long-term test by comparing to other company product. Our membrane keep up steadily $20{\sim}25 L/m^2{\cdot}hr$ high flux in $7,000{\sim}13,000mg/L$ MLSS high sludge concentration. In addition to this quality, we studied membrane flux character related membrane arrangement, membrane-air line arrangement, air-line hole size, cleaning solution concentration, treatment method, etc. Using the optimization of this additional parameter, we tried to search method of maximizing membrane quality.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

In membrane bioreactor (MBR), activated sludge degrade the biological component and membrane process separate this bacterial flocks as well the suspended solids. However, membrane fouling is one of the major issues in MBR. In this review, composite membrane used in MBR to overcome fouling is discussed. It is classified into membrane containing carbon and noncarbon materials. Introducing graphene, graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes or their modified part into pristine membrane enhance hydrophilicity of the composite membrane. Inorganic materials like silicon dioxide (SiO₂) or titanium dioxide (TiO₂) are also incorporated for preparing composite membrane to increase its water flux.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.70-83
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• 2005

By supplying air intermittently in various mode, the effects of oxic/anoxic time ratio and air scrubbing in aeration condition on the membrane flux and permeability were investigated. When suction pump stops, vacuum pressure remains inside the suction pump. Therefore, the effect of remaining vacuum pressure in the suction pump on fouling of membrane was investigated. The effect of EPS (Extra cellular Polymeric Substance) which is generated due to the long SRT and high concentration of MLSS and the dose of coagulant on the membrane were also investigated. The suitable oxic/anoxic time ratio for the best removal efficiency of organic matter and nitrogenous matter was 40 minutes (Oxic) : 20 minutes (Anoxic). At this time ratio, alum was dosed into the aeration tank. The result of dosing alum was that the concentration of alum solution might affect nitrification and denitrification. To remove 1 mg/L of phosphorus in MBR process, it needs 0.75 mg/L of alum solution.