CFD Simulation of Fouling by Biological materials in Membrane Bioreactor

In recent years membrane bioreactors filtration is increasingly used in wastewater treatment to enhance the quality of wastewater. The main problem in preventing the widespread use of membrane bioreactor is its congestion which has a severe impact on output flux to time ratio. If solid suspensions with high concentrations exist in the wastewater, this influence will be even more severe. In addition to the suspended solids in the liquid mixture, Extracellular polymeric materials (EPS) and soluble microbialproducts (SMP) are also known as basic microbial products that cause membrane fouling. EPS can becalculated within and on the membrane which increases the viscosity of suspended solids in the liquid mixture and increases filtration resistance. SMPs cannot penetrate the pores of the ultra filtration membrane due to the limited size of the pores which would cause fouling in membrane processes.According to the above issues, providing a model that indicates the properties and conditions of formation and destruction of SMP and EPS at the same time seems necessary. In this paper, CFD simulation of biological fouling in membrane bioreactor is provided using Fluent software.

Keywords:

Membrane Bioreactor , Filtration , Fouling , Extracellular Polymeric Substances , SolubleMicrobial Products