Impact of aeration rate and dielectrophoretic force on fouling suppression in submerged membrane bioreactors

Abstract Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) present a unique opportunity in waste water treatment by combining the activated sludge process with membrane filtration. Although MBRs require less area, produce less volume of sludge and have high purification efficiency, they suffer from high membrane fouling. Membrane fouling can be reduced by applying aeration and Dep voltage. However, application of these two anti-fouling mechanisms would make the process expensive. Thus, a new aeration and DEP scheme of 5 min on – 5 min off is being suggested in this study. With this scheme, it was found that through application of DEP at 100 V and 0.3 L/min.m 2 aeration flowrate and reduced lumen size of 6 mm, the membrane permeate flux can be increased by 58% compared to MBR without DEP and aeration. However, through energy analysis the optimum operating parameters were found to be at 0.3 L/min.m 2 aeration flowrate and 50 V DEP using the suggested 5 min on-5 min off scheme. At the optimum operating condition, the permeability flux is 54% higher than MBR without DEP and aeration.