microalgal-bacterial membrane photobioreactor (mbmpbr) for wastewater treatment and membrane fouling characterization
abstract
this thesis investigated the effects of combined hydraulic retention time (hrt) and
nitrogen/phosphorus (n/p) ratio variation, and solo solids retention time (srt) variation on the
biological performance and membrane fouling of microalgal-bacterial membrane photobioreactor
(mb-mpbr) for wastewater treatment.
the results showed that both hrt and n/p ratio significantly affected biomass production,
nutrient removal, and biological micromorphology. the reason was attributed to the different
nutrient loading rates resulted from the various combinations of hrt and n/p ratio. controlling
nutrient loading rate below the nutrients removal capacity threshold was critical to achieving
superior effluent quality meeting the discharge standards.
a lower n/p ratio of 3.9:1 led to a more quickly transmembrane pressure increase under the
same hrt and total influent nitrogen concentration. characterization of mixed liquor showed that
smaller particle size under the lower n/p ratio was the primary contributor to the faster increase in
membrane fouling. x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps), fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (ftir), and microscopic analysis demonstrated that the underlying reason for the
decreased floc size was attributed to the strengthened competitiveness and overgrowth of
microalgae at p-rich conditions. [...]