Experimental Study on Membrane Fouling and Cleaning in Hydrolytic Acidification -Membrane - Sequencing Batch Reactors Process

Abstract

The process of hydrolytic acidification (HA) - membrane (M) - sequencing batch reactors (SBR) was used to deal with mixed municipal wastewater and landfill leachate. The system operated continuously for 90 days, and the changes of membrane filtration resistance and membrane cleaning were investigated. The results showed that the membrane fouling rate developed slowly during the continuous operation of the system, and the tota membrane filtration resistance increased from the initial 2.82 × 1012m−1 to 11.4 × 1012 m−1. In addition, it was found that the reversible membrane fouling was the main part of the membrane-sequencing batch filter, which accounted for 47.35% of the total filtration resistance, by observing the surface of the membrane module before and after cleaning test. What’s more, hydraulic cleaning could effectively remove the sludge and granular sediments deposited on the membrane surface, and the total resistance of membrane filtration decreased from 293.84% to 176.45%. However, by further soaking membrane components with 5%o NaClO and 5%o HCl solutions, the membrane filtration performance would be fully restored, and the total membrane filtration resistance would be restored to 104.35% of the initial state.