• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.245-253
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to investigate the membrane fouling in a thermophilic membrane bioreactor (TMBR) operated different sludge retention times (SRTs). For this purpose, TMBR was operated at four different SRTs (10, 30, 60 and 100 days). Specific cake resistance (${\alpha}$), cake resistance, gel resistance, total resistance, MFI (modified fouling index) and FDR (flux decrease ratio) were calculated for all SRTs. It was observed that flux in the membrane increases with rising SRT although the sludge concentrations in the TMBR increased. The steady state flux was found to be 31.78; 34.70; 39.60 and 43.70 LMH ($Liter/m^2/h$) for the SRTs of 10, 30, 60 and 100 days respectively. The concentrations of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) and soluble microbial product (SMP) decreased with increasing SRT. The membrane fouling rate was higher at shorter SRT and the highest fouling rate appeared at an SRT of 10 d. Both the sludge cake layer and gel layer had contribution to the fouling resistance, but the gel layer resistance value was dominant in all SRTs.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.150-152
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• 1998

Now the lack of water is serious problem all over the world because of the growth of population and expansion of industrial activities. So wastewater recycle and reuse is essential in many countries. One of the most popular wastewater treatment processes is conventional activated sludge system. In spite of significant degree of treatment rate the biological process has some operational difficulties and capital disadvantages. In conventional activated sludge process, sludge settling condition is getting worse in case of sludge bulking, it is common that overall process fails due to wash-out of biomass causing low concentration of MLSS in the aeration tank. Because of the absence of claifier the membrane bioreactor(MBR) process is less affected by such problems.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.573-583
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• 2017

Biofilm formation on the membrane surface results in the loss of permeability in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) for wastewater treatment. Studies have revealed that cellulose is not only produced by a number of bacterial species but also plays a key role during formation of their biofilm. Hence, in this study, cellulase was introduced to a MBR as a cellulose-induced biofilm control strategy. For practical application of cellulase to MBR, a cellulolytic (i.e., cellulase-producing) bacterium, Undibacterium sp. DM-1, was isolated from a lab-scale MBR for wastewater treatment. Prior to its application to MBR, it was confirmed that the cell-free supernatant of DM-1 was capable of inhibiting biofilm formation and of detaching the mature biofilm of activated sludge and cellulose-producing bacteria. This suggested that cellulase could be an effective anti-biofouling agent for MBRs used in wastewater treatment. Undibacterium sp. DM-1-entrapping beads (i.e., cellulolytic-beads) were applied to a continuous MBR to mitigate membrane biofouling 2.2-fold, compared with an MBR with vacant-beads as a control. Subsequent analysis of the cellulose content in the biofilm formed on the membrane surface revealed that this mitigation was associated with an approximately 30% reduction in cellulose by cellulolytic-beads in MBR.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.42-49
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• 2017

The application of electro-coagulation has been attempted to control the membrane fouling problem in a MBR (Membrane Bio-Reactor). This study examined the effects of the operating parameters (current density and contact time) of the electro-coagulation process on the change in the characteristics of activated sludge. The current density changed from 2.5 to 12, $24A/m^2$, and the contact time was varied from 0 to 2 and 6 hr, respectively. At a current density of $24A/m^2$ and 6 hr of operation, the MLSS changed from 6,800 to 7,000 mg/L (3% increase), but the MLVSS did not increase significantly. After 6 hr of operation, the soluble COD decreased from 71 to 37 mg/L under the $24A/m^2$ condition, from 113 to 67 mg/L under the $12A/m^2$ condition, and from 84 to 80 mg/L under the $2.5A/m^2$ condition. On the other hand, soluble-TN and -TP concentration showed slight changes. The soluble-EPS and Bound-EPS concentration decreased slightly with increasing current density. The membrane filtration performance of activated sludge before and after electro-coagulation was compared. The filtration resistances after electro-coagulation decreased from 6 to 61 %, particularly as the current density and contact time were increased. This indicates that electro-coagulation can be used to control membrane fouling in the MBR process.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.257-264
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• 2006

An aerobic submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) treating ammonium wastewater was studied in respect of nitrification characteristics and distribution of nitrification bacteria over a period of 350 days. MBR was fed with ammonium concentration of 500-1000 mg $NH_4-N/L$ at a nitrogen load of $1-2kg\;N/m^3{\cdot}d$. Overall ammonium oxidation rate increased with dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, temperature, and sludge retention time (SRT). Under a higher concentration of free ammonia ($NH_3-N$) due to the decrease of ammonium oxidation rate, the nitrite ratio ($NO_2-N/NO_x-N$) in the effluent increased. The sudden collapse of nitrification efficiency accompanied by sludge foaming and the increase of sludge volume index (SVI) was observed unexpectedly during the operation. At the later stage of operation, additional carbon source was fed to the MBR and resulted in twice higher value of SVI and the decrease of ammonium oxidation rate. In fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis, genus Nitrosomonas which is specifically hybridized with probe NSM156 was initially the dominant ammonia oxidizing bacteria and the amount of Nitrosospira gradually increased. Nitrospira was the dominant nitrite oxidizing bacteria during whole operational period. Significant amount of Nitrobacter was also detected which might due to the high concentration of nitrite maintained in the reactor.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.2314-2320
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• 2015

MBR (Membrane Bio-Reactor) process is known to consume enormous energy to control membrane fouling. To solve this problem, electro-coagulation technique has been applied to MBR. A series of electro-coagulation was applied to activated sludge suspension under different current density condition. After the electro-coagulations, membrane filtration of the activated sludge suspensions was conducted to investigate the effect of electro-coagulation on the fouling. As current density increased 10 to 40A/m2, the total fouling resistance (Rc+Rf) decreased from 18 to 79%, showing that the electro-coagulation improved the membrane filtration efficiency. Both the organic concentration in bulk and the particles size distribution were not nearly changed before and after the electro-coagulation. The enhanced filtration efficiency might be due to the aluminum hydroxide generated from chemical precipitation, which can be acted as a dynamic membrane preventing a deposition of foulants on membrane surfaces.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.81-91
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• 2007

A membrane bioreactor (MBR) was used to investigate the aerobic degradation of foam active substance - non-ionic surfactant, APG 2000 UP. The surface aeration using the propeller loop reactor (PLR) guaranteed sufficient $O_2$ for substrate removal and bacteria growth and avoided foam development. Moreover, the cross-flow membrane filtration enabled the separation of the bacteria still loaded with surfactant in the collecting container. The biological degradation of the surfactant with varying hydraulic retention time (HRT) and influent concentration $c_{S0}$ showed high substrate removal of nearly 95% at high volumetric loading rates up to $7.4\;kgCOD\;m^{-3}d^{-1}$ and at sludge loading rates up to 1.8 kgCOD $(kgVSS\;d)^{-1}$ for biomass concentration $c_B\;{\approx}\;constant $. The increasing $c_B$ from 3.4 to $14.5\;gL^{-1}$ TSS respectively sludge retention time (SRT) from 5.1 to 442 d under complete biomass retention by the membrane filtration resulted in high removal of substrate ${\alpha}\;>\;90%$ with reducing excess sludge production.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.182-187
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate effect of coagulation on filtration performance of membrane in submerged MBR system and influence of continuous aeration to reduce fouling of membrane surface on coagulated floc. For this purpose, aeration tank sludge of MBR system was compared with jar-test sludge. The experimental results were analysed in terms of floc size and SRF (Specific resistance of Filtration). The more alum was added, the more content of floc below $10{\mu}m$ reduced and SRF decreased. But compared with jar-test results, it was found that effect of coagulation on MBR floc was reduced. Operation time of membrane in alum added MBR was longer than that in control MBR. But operation time was not proportional to alum dose. It was thought that the result was reason that floc below $10{\mu}m$ was not reduced sufficiently by shear force of continuous aeration. Moreover it was founded that if alum is added more than proper dose, it brings filtration resistance to increase.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.197-205
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• 2014

For the first time in Bangladesh, a bench scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) unit was tested in treating a textile wastewater in the industry premises of EOS Textile Mills LTD, Dhaka for three months. The performance of the unit was compared with that of the conventional activated sludge treatment plant, which is in operation in the same premises. The COD and BOD removal efficiency of the MBR unit reached to around 90% and 80% respectively in 20 days whereas the removal efficiency of the conventional treatment plant was as low as 40-50% and 38-40% respectively. The outlet COD and the BOD level for the MBR unit remained stable in spite of the fluctuation in the feed value, while the conventional effluent treatment plant (ETP) failed to keep any stabilized level. The performance of the MBR unit was much superior to that of the functional ETP and the water treated by the MBR system can meet disposal standard.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2020

The objectives of this research were the reduction of membrane fouling and improvement of sludge properties by using synthesized H-ZSM-5 and NH₄-ZSM-5 zeolites. These two nano zeolites were synthesized and added to the membrane bioreactor (MBR). Three similar MBRs with the same operational condition were used in order to evaluate their effect on the mentioned matters. The evaluated parameters were trans-membrane pressure (TMP), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), particle size distribution (PSD), soluble microbial product (SMP), extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and, excitation-emission matrix (EEM). The MBR₀ was without any additional zeolite while 0.4 g/L of H-ZSM-5 and NH₄-ZSM-5 were added to MBR_HZSM-5 and MBR_NH4ZSM-5, respectively. The COD removal of the MBR₀, MBR_H-ZSM-5 and MBR_NH4-ZSM-5 were 87.5%, 93.3% and 94.6%, respectively. The TMP of the MBR_H-ZSM-5 was 45% less than MBR₀ whereas the reduction for MBR_NH4-ZSM-5 was 65.5%. Also results showed that both H-ZSM-5 and NH₄-ZSM-5 caused reduction in protein and polysaccharide related EPS but the NH₄-ZSM-5 had better performance toward the elimination of organic compounds.