Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics of membrane fouling caused by soluble organic materials in a membrane bioreactor process. For the removal of filterable organic materials (FOC) smaller than $1{\mu}m$, coagulants and activated carbon were added. A membrane bioreactor using a submerged $17{\mu}m$ metal sieve was operated in laboratory scale to examine the possibility of membrane fouling control. As the dosage of GAC and coagulant increased, the residual FOC concentration decreased and the permeate flow rate increased markedly. The permeate flux increased with an increased PACl addition at the range from 0 to 50 mg/l. At coagulant dosage of 27mg/l, the removal of FOC was about 46% and the flux increased to 3.5 times compared to the case without PACl addition. The permeate flux increased gradually with an increase in GAC dosage. At GAC dosage of 50mg/L, the permeate flux was about 2 times higher compared that for raw water. The particle in the range of $0.1{\sim}1.0{\mu}m$ were removed effectively by the addition of GAC and coagulant. Higher osage of GAC and coagulant, led to higher removal of FOC. A different set of experiments was also performed to investigate the effect of pretreatment on the permeation ability of MBR system using the metal sieve membrane. After 40 hours of operation, the permeate flux was about 1,000 ($L/m^2-hr$), which is 20 times higher compared to the results in literature. It is likely that combined pretreatment using coagulant and activated carbon was the most effective to resolve membrane fouling problems. Moreover, the continuous operations could be successful by applying this pretreatment method.