Biofouling is a crucial factor in membrane bioreactor (MBR) applications, particularly for high organic loading operations. This paper reports a study on biofouling in an MBR to establish a relationship between critical flux, Jc, mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) (ranging from 5 to 20 g L-1) and volumetric loading rate (6.3 kg COD m-3 h-1) of palm oil mill effluent (POME). A lab-scale 100 L ...

The effect of pH on membrane fouling in a submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) was investigated in this study. It was found that, pH increase slightly increased the resistance of virgin membrane and fouled membrane. Pore clogging resistance was quite low, which was not apparently affected by the pH variation. Lower pH resulted in higher adherence of sludge flocs on membrane surface. Thermodynami...

Despite pharmaceuticals being widely detected in water-bodies worldwide, what remain unclear are the effects of high pharmaceutical concentrations on treatment efficiency biological wastewater processes, such as membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems. This study investigated MBR technology synthetic containing a mixture five typical (ofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamethylthiadiazole, carbamazepine...

In this study, a lab-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) was operated for a period of more than 10 months to determine the biokinetic coefficients of the system under the hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 20, 15 and 10 hrs and sludge retention times (SRT) of 5-20 days. The results revealed that the biological removal efficiency of styrene and ethylbenzene at a solid retention time of 20 day and a ...

Over 1.5 years continuous piloting of a municipal wastewater plant upgraded with a double membrane system (ca. 0.6 m(3) d(-1) of product water produced) have demonstrated the feasibility of achieving high water quality with a water yield of 90% by combining a membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a submerged ultrafiltration membrane followed by a reverse osmosis membrane (RO). The novelty of the propo...

This study examined the relationship between specific molecular features of trace organic contaminants and their removal efficiencies by a laboratory scale membrane bioreactor (MBR). Removal efficiencies of 40 trace organic compounds were assessed under stable operating conditions. The reported results demonstrate an apparent correlation between chemical structures and the removal of trace orga...

The effect of environmental conditions on the diversity and interactions of microbial communities has caused tremendous interest in microbial ecology. Here, we found that with identical influents but differing operational parameters (mainly mixed liquor suspended solid (MLSS) concentrations, solid retention time (SRT) and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations), two full-scale municipal wastewate...

White-rot fungi, unlike bacteria in conventional activated sludge system, can degrade wide varieties of textile dyes. Their large scale implementation, however, has been impeded due to lack of appropriate reactor system that can sustain stable performance under non-sterile environment. In this study, contrary to virtually complete decoloration of an azo dye (Acid Orange II, 100 mg L(-1)) in pur...

In this study, the effects of ionic strength on membrane fouling in a membrane bioreactor (MBR) were investigated. Ionic strength in range of 0.005-0.05mol/L exerted no apparent impacts on the resistance of virgin membrane, fouled membrane and pore clogging. Thermodynamic analysis showed existences of a secondary energy minimum and an energy barrier in the process of the sludge flocs approachin...

Textile waste water treatment for industrial reuse remains as a complicated problem due to several reasons. Among them are: 1) Higher levels of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) content of the waste water; 2) Non-biodegradable nature of organic dye stuffs present in the effluent. Thus, any adopted treatment system, especially with resp...