Abstract
Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) with polymeric/ceramic microfiltration (MF) membranes have been commonly used for wastewater treatment today. However, membrane biofouling often results in a dramatically-reduced service life of MF membranes, which limits the application of this technology. In this study, Cu hollow fiber membranes (Cu-HFMs) with low resistivity (104.8–309.8 nΩ·m) and anti-biofouling properties were successfully synthesized. Further analysis demonstrated that Cu-HFMs reduced at 625°C achieved the bimodal pore size distribution of ~1 μm and a porosity of 46%, which enable high N2 permeance (1.56 × 10−5 mol/m2 s pa) and pure water flux (5812 LMH/bar). The Cu-HFMs were further applied as the conductive cathodes, as well as MF membranes, in the electrochemical membrane bioreactor (EMBR) system that was enriched with domestic wastewater at an applied voltage of 0.9 V. Excellent permeate quality (Total suspended solids (TSS) = 11 mg/L) was achieved at a flux of 9.47 LMH after Cu-HFM filtration, with relatively stable transmembrane pressure (TMP) and low Cu2+ dissolvability (<25 μg/L). The anti-biofouling over time was demonstrated by SEM characterization of the rare biofilm formation on the Cu-HFM cathode surface. By using Cu-HFMs in EMBR systems, an effective strategy to control the membrane biofouling is developed in this study.
Highlights
Water scarcity is becoming a global issue and severely hindering the development of rural areas
In order to reject the biomass/suspended solids and improve the effluent quality, membrane filtration was integrated with Bio-electrochemical systems (BES) to jointly work as electrochemical membrane bioreactors (EMBRs), which keep the strengths of both sides and have great potential for wastewater treatment (Ozgun et al, 2013; Yuan and He, 2015)
The preparation of Cu hollow fiber membranes (Cu-HFMs) from discrete copper particles via the established phase-inversion process involves the spinning of hollow fiber precursors (HFPs) and high-temperature oxidizingreductive sintering
Summary
Water scarcity is becoming a global issue and severely hindering the development of rural areas. Industrialization in developing countries has achieved huge advances, but introduced large amounts of wastewater at the same time, which intensifies the global water scarcity. Though BES could remove more than 80% Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) in the synthetic wastewater, the reclaimed effluent still contains. Cu-HFMs for EMBR Application substantial amounts of biomass or suspended solids (Zhang and He, 2013). In order to reject the biomass/suspended solids and improve the effluent quality, membrane filtration was integrated with BES to jointly work as electrochemical membrane bioreactors (EMBRs), which keep the strengths of both sides and have great potential for wastewater treatment (Ozgun et al, 2013; Yuan and He, 2015)
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