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Updated: Jun 27, 2025
A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Enhanced anaerobic digestion performance and sludge filterability by membrane microaeration for anaerobic membrane
Chun-Hai Wei1, Zheng-Wei Wang2, Jian-Hua Dai2
1Department of Municipal Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China; Key Laboratory for Water Quality and Conservation of the Pearl River Delta, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Abstract:
Slow dissolution/hydrolysis of insoluble/macromolecular organics and poor sludge filterability restrict the application potential of anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR). Bubble-free membrane microaeration was firstly proposed to overcome these obstacles in this study. The batch anaerobic digestion tests feeding insoluble starch and soluble peptone with and without microaeration showed that microaeration led to a 65.7-144.8% increase in methane production and increased critical flux of microfiltration membrane via driving the formation of large sludge flocs and the resultant improvement of sludge settleability. The metagenomic and bioinformatic analyses showed that microaeration significantly enriched the functional genes and bacteria for polysaccharide and protein hydrolysis, microaeration showed little negative effects on the functional genes involved in anaerobic metabolisms, and substrate transfer from starch to peptone significantly affected the functional genes and microbial community. This study demonstrates the dual synergism of microaeration to enhance the dissolution/hydrolysis/acidification of insoluble/macromolecular organics and sludge filterability for AnMBR application.
