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Updated: Dec 20, 2025
Development of Sulfidogenic Sludge from Marine Sediments and Trichloroethylene Reduction in an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor
Published on: October 15, 2015
Fluidized bed membrane bioreactor achieves high sulfate reduction and filtration performances at moderate
Guldenur Oztemur1, Senem Teksoy Basaran2, Zeynep Tayran1
1Environmental and Energy Systems Engineering Program, Istanbul Medeniyet University, 34700, Istanbul, Turkey.
Abstract:
The study explored the potential of an up-flow sulfate reducing fluidized-bed membrane bioreactor (SR-FMBR) for biogenic sulfide generation at room temperature together with evaluation of filtration and fouling characteristics developed under various operational conditions. The SR-FMBR was tested at different COD/sulfate (mg/mg) ratios for a total of 127 days, initially at 35 °C and then at 23 °C. SR-FMBR was able to achieve COD oxidation and sulfate reduction efficiencies up to 98%, and allowed for biogenic sulfide generation up to 600 mg/L (97% of theoretical value) at room temperature. Alkalinity was generated as a result of sulfate reduction and averaged around 1900 mgCaCO3/L in the permeate. Hence, starting the bioreactor operation at 35 °C and then decreasing it to 23 °C did not adversely affect the process performance. High filtration fluxes up to 9.3 L/m2/h (LMH) could be maintained at employed hydraulic retention times between 24 h and 6 h. Observing relatively high filtration performance was due to keeping a high fraction of biomass attached to the carrier material, which decreased the cake formation potential on the membrane surface compared to conventional MBR operation. The SR-FMBR performance may further be tested for heavy metal removal under sulfidogenic conditions for acid mine drainage treatment.
