Release Time:2019-03-11  Hits:

Indexed by: Journal Article

Date of Publication: 2018-05-01

Journal: JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE

Included Journals: EI、SCIE

Volume: 553

Page Number: 54-62

ISSN: 0376-7388

Key Words: AnEMBR; Carbon nanotubes hollow fiber membranes; Membrane fouling; Transmembrane pressure; Electrochemical effects

Abstract: Membrane fouling is a ubiquitous and costly problem for membrane bioreactor (MBR) that usually deteriorated membrane performance. Applied voltage on membrane is an important strategies mitigating the fouling. To evaluate antifouling mechanisms of electro-enhanced carbon nanotubes hollow-fiber membranes (CNTs-HFMs), the removal of bovine serum albumin (BSA), sodium alginate (SA) and supernatant of anaerobic bioreactor (SAB) were performed. The results showed that the optimal applied voltage (-1.2 V) could effectively reduce membrane fouling from excluding the negative pollutants far away from the membrane surface, offering an impediment on forming gel layer and controlling the formation of high-molecular-weight pollutants. The effluent COD removal efficiencies by filtrating BSA (92.1%), SA (87.3%) and SAB (56.8%) at -1.2 V were 3.3, 1.4 and 1.5 times higher than that of membrane filtration alone. Then, a short-term experiment (30 days) was performed, where CNTs-HFMs served dual function as the cathode and filtration function in an electro-enhanced anaerobic bioreactor (AnEMBR). The results presented that a low transmembrane pressure of 0.35 bar was obtained compared to the control reactor (0.60 bar), implying that applied voltage on CNTs-HFMs contributed to alleviate membrane fouling. This work implied that electrochemical control might provide a promising avenue to mitigate membrane fouling in MBR.