Behaviour of fouling-related components in an enhanced membrane bioreactor using marine activated sludge

This paper presents an experimental study on behaviour of fouling-related components during saline wastewater treatments in an enhanced mesoporous membrane bioreactor (MBR) system integrated with a biological contact oxidation reactor (BCOR). By monitoring the transmembrane pressure, the MBR system without BCOR assistance was observed to get membrane fouling easier during saline wastewater treatments. Typically, the concentration of total EPS gradually increased in the MBR system over the operation time, while no significant change in its concentration was observed in the BCOR-MBR system. The concentration of total SMP in the MBR system reached high levels earlier than the BCOR-MBR system, causing a significant membrane fouling. Besides, unlike a simple MBR system, the BCOR-MBR system produced more soluble microbial by-product-like components (simple) instead of fulvic acid-like or humic acid-like components (complex) during the saline wastewater treatments, resulting in higher resistance to a membrane fouling.