Mitigation of Membrane Fouling in Waste Water Treatment Plants by Using MBBR & Sponge Membrane Bioreactor (Sponge-MBR)

A membrane bioreactor system is used to treat domestic wastewater by activated sludge-membrane bioreactor (AS-MBR). Two configurations; moving bed bioreactor, sponge-membrane bio reactor (MBBR & Sponge-MBR) and one nanocomposite membrane have been successfully designed to diminish membrane fouling caused by activated sludge. The classical phase inversion was harnessed to prepare zinc oxide nanoparticles embeded with polyphenyl sulfone nanocomposite membranes ZnO/PPSU using 1.5 g ZnO. Prepared nanocomposite membrane surface was fully characterized by a series of experimental tools, e.g., scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), and contact angle (CA), pore size and pore size distribution. The testing procedure was performed through an AS-MBR system as a reference and the results were compared with the configurations obtained from the moving bed (MBBR-MBR) and sponge-MBR, in presence of layer of dense polyurethane sponge (15 x10 x1.5 cm) systems. The fouling reduction of the membrane has improved significantly and thus the overall long-term increased by 145% compared with the control AS-MBR configuration. The experimental results showcased that sponge-MBR were capable of adsorbing activated sludge and other contaminants to minimize the membrane fouling. The sponge-MBR was capable of eliminating nitrogen and phosphorus by 71% and 80%, respectively.