Customized thin and loose cake layer to mitigate membrane fouling in an electro-assisted anaerobic forward osmosis membrane bioreactor (AnOMEBR)

Anaerobic forward osmosis membrane bioreactor (AnOMBR) is a potential wastewater treatment technology, due to its low energy consumption and high effluent quality. However, membrane fouling is still a considerable problem which causes dwindling of water flux and shortening the membrane lifetime. In this study, electro-assisted anaerobic forward osmosis membrane bioreactor (AnOMEBR) was developed to treat wastewater and mitigate membrane fouling, in which the conductive FO membrane was used both as the separation unit and cathode. The formation, development and alleviation of membrane fouling in AnOMEBR were investigated. The results showed that the soluble microbial products (SMP) content and the proteins/polysaccharides (PN/PS) value in AnOMEBR were 26% and 15% lower than that in AnOMBR, respectively. The absolute value of Zeta of sludgemixture in AnOMEBR was 1.2 times that of the AnOMBR. The increase in the interaction between themembrane surface and the negatively charged foulants could inhibit the adsorption of foulants on membrane surface in the initial stage of membrane fouling. The strong interaction among foulants further affected the composition, structure and thickness of the cake layer on the FO membrane surface. AnOMEBR with a shorter hydraulic retention time, a higher organic loading rate and a lower osmotic pressure difference, could still obtain a lower flux decline rate of 0.063 LMH/h, which was 35.7% lower than AnOMBR. The wastewater treatment capacity of AnOMEBR was nearly 1.5 times that of the AnOMBR. This work provides an efficient strategy for mitigating membrane fouling and improving wastewater treatment capacity. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.