Comparison of membrane bioreactor systems in wastewater treatment Original Research Article

This study investigated the performance of four different membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems, namely floating media biofilter–crossflow microfiltration (FMB–CFMF) system, submerged membrane bioreactor (SMBR) alone, submerged membrane adsorption bioreactor (SMABR) and sponge–SMBR system, in terms of critical flux. The results indicated that FMB could be used as a pretreatment unit prior to MBR in order to minimize membrane fouling when the FMB–CFMF system operates under sub-critical flux condition. The addition of powdered activated carbon (PAC) could maintain the sustainable flux at a lower TMP value (7.5 kPa). However, irreversible fouling occurred when the filtration flux exceeded the critical flux. The addition of 10% volume (reactor volume) fraction of sponge could increase sustainable flux of SMBR system to 2 times.