Membrane Fouling and Control Approaches in Membrane Bioreactor Systems: A Review

IF 3.8 4区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Water, Air, & Soil Pollution Pub Date : 2025-02-15 DOI:10.1007/s11270-025-07794-6

Mustafa Turan

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Abstract

Membrane bioreactors (MBRs), in which membranes are performed to biological wastewater treatment for biomass separation, ensure many benefits over traditional wastewater treatment. The technology has developed to contain anaerobic MBRs (AnMBRs) due to the profit of generating renewable energy in the form of methane biogas and decreasing the cost of aeration and sludge disposal. Results show that the non-settleable substances and high solid concentrations in AnMBR cause to a significant membrane fouling inclination compared to aerobic MBR. Curiously, there seemed a critical AGS size (1–1.2 mm) for membrane fouling. Above or below critical AGS size, fouling declined as the size increase or decrease. Membrane fouling in MBRs can be reversible (i.e., detachable by physical washing) or irreversible (i.e., detachable by chemical cleaning solely), and can happen on the membrane surface or into the membrane pores. The use of air scouring (for aerobic MBRs) or biogas sparging (for AnMBRs) is widely used for fouling control. This paper provides to review current methods employed to mitigate and control membrane fouling in aerobic MBR, AnMBR and combined MBR systems. Overscale implementation of fouling control approaches should be the focus of future studies.

Graphical Abstract (Liu et al., 2020a)

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来源期刊

Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

6.90%

发文量

448

审稿时长

2.6 months

期刊介绍： Water, Air, & Soil Pollution is an international, interdisciplinary journal on all aspects of pollution and solutions to pollution in the biosphere. This includes chemical, physical and biological processes affecting flora, fauna, water, air and soil in relation to environmental pollution. Because of its scope, the subject areas are diverse and include all aspects of pollution sources, transport, deposition, accumulation, acid precipitation, atmospheric pollution, metals, aquatic pollution including marine pollution and ground water, waste water, pesticides, soil pollution, sewage, sediment pollution, forestry pollution, effects of pollutants on humans, vegetation, fish, aquatic species, micro-organisms, and animals, environmental and molecular toxicology applied to pollution research, biosensors, global and climate change, ecological implications of pollution and pollution models. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution also publishes manuscripts on novel methods used in the study of environmental pollutants, environmental toxicology, environmental biology, novel environmental engineering related to pollution, biodiversity as influenced by pollution, novel environmental biotechnology as applied to pollution (e.g. bioremediation), environmental modelling and biorestoration of polluted environments. Articles should not be submitted that are of local interest only and do not advance international knowledge in environmental pollution and solutions to pollution. Articles that simply replicate known knowledge or techniques while researching a local pollution problem will normally be rejected without review. Submitted articles must have up-to-date references, employ the correct experimental replication and statistical analysis, where needed and contain a significant contribution to new knowledge. The publishing and editorial team sincerely appreciate your cooperation. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution publishes research papers; review articles; mini-reviews; and book reviews.