Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) employ a process of biological treatment that is based on a membrane that has the advantages of producing high-quality treated water and possessing a compact footprint. However, despite these advantages, the occurrence of “fouling” during the operation of these reactors causes the difficulty of maintenance.Hence, in this study, three physical cleaning methods, namely, backwashing, air scrubbing, and mechanical cleaning ball was performed to identify optimum operating conditions through laboratory scale experiments, and apply them in a pilot plant. Further, the existing MBR process was compared with these methods, and the field applicability of a combination of these physical cleaning methods was investigated.Consequently, MCB, direct control of cake fouling on the membrane surface was found to be the most effective. Moreover, as a result of operating with combination of the physical cleaning process in a pilot plant, the TMP increasing rate was found to be – 0.00007 MPa/day, which was 185% higher than that obtained using the existing MBR process. Therefore, assuming fouling only by cake filtration, about one year of operation without chemical cleaning is considered to be feasible through the optimization of the physical cleaning methods.

본 연구에서는 분리막을 이용하여 안정적인 혐기소화조 전처리 농축공정에 대한 적용성을 평가하는데 목적을 두었다. 실험결과 슬러지 감량율의 경우 혐기조건에서 약 47.16%, 간헐폭기 조건에서 약 41.17%으로 나타났으며, 반류수의 농도의 경우 간헐폭기 조건이 평균적으로 혐기조건보다 낮은 반류수 농도를 나타냈다. Flux 감소에 대한 영향인자로 TTF, MLSS, CODcr, 및 EPS의 상관관계 분석결과 Flux 감소에 TTF가 가장 높은 연관성을 보였으며, 이외에 MLSS, CODcr 및 EPS도 밀접한 관련이 있는 것으로 도출되었다. 이러한 결과 혐기소화조의 전처리 공정으로 관형막을 이용한 경우 막오염 및 반류수 부하를 고려한 농축조 간헐폭기 조건이 안정적 전처리공정으로 적절할 것으로 사료된다.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the applicability of a stable anaerobic digester using a separator membrane to the preprocessing thickening process. The results of the experiments showed about a 47.16% weight loss rate for the sludge under anaerobic condition, and about 41.17% under intermittent aeration condition. The concentrations of rejection water were SCODCr 25 mg/L, T-N 16.6 mg/L, and T-P 1.4 mg/L on the average under the intermittent aeration condition, which were lower than the concentrations of rejection water under an anaerobic condition. As for the factors affecting the reduction of the flux, correlation analyses of TTF, MLSS, SCODCr, and EPSProtein, EPSPolysacchride resulted in -0.97, -0.95, -0.84 and -0.86, -0.95, respectively, which showed that TTF had the highest correlation to the reduction of the flux. In addition, it was concluded that MLSS, SCODCr and EPSProtein, EPSPolysacchride also have close correlations. The results are considered to show that, in the case of the process using a tubular membrane in the preprocessing process of an anaerobic digester, an intermittent aeration condition of the thickener considering the contamination of the membrane and load of rejection water is appropriate for the stable preprocessing process.

It is essential to decrease energy consumption and excess sludge to economically operate sewage treatment plant. This becomes more important along with a ban on sea dumping and exhaustion of resource. Therefore, many researchers have been study on energy consumption reduction and strategies for minimization of excess sludge production from the activated sludge process. The aeration cost account for a high proportion of maintenance cost because sufficient air is necessary to keep nitrifying bacteria activity of which the oxygen affinity is inferior to that of heterotrophic bacteria. Also, additional costs are incurred to stabilize excess sludge and decrease the volume of sludge. There were anoxic, aerobic, membrane, deairation and concentration zone in this MBR process. Continuous aeration was provided to prevent membrane fouling in membrane zone and intermittent aeration was provided in aerobic zone through ammonia sensor. So, there was the minimum oxygen to remove NH4-N below limited quantity that could be eliminated in membrane zone. As the result of this control, energy consumption of aeration system declined by between 10.4 % and 19.1 %. Besides, we could maintain high MLSS concentration in concentration zone and this induced the microorganisms to be in starved condition. Consequentially, the amount of excess sludge decrease by about 15 %.