Flux enhancement with powdered activated carbon addition in the membrane anaerobic bioreactor

Heesu Park, Kwang Ho Choo, Chung Hak Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

91 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effect of powdered activated carbon (PAC) addition on the performance of a membrane-coupled anaerobic bioreactor (MCAB) was investigated in terms of membrane filterability and treatabilty through a series of batch and continuous microfiltration (MF) experiments. In both batch and continuous MF of the digestion broth, a flux improvement with PAC addition was achieved, especially when a higher shear rate and/or a higher PAC dose were applied. Both the fouling and cake layer resistances decreased continuously with increasing the PAC dose up to 5 g/L. PAC played an important role in subtantially reducing the biomass cake resistance due to its incompressible nature and higher backtransport velocities. PAC might have a scouring effect for removing the deposited biomass cake from the membrane surface while sorbing and/or coagulating dissolved organics and colloidal particles in the broth. The chemical oxygen demand and color in the effluent were much removed with PAC addition, and the system was also more stable against shock loading.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2781-2792
Number of pages12
JournalSeparation Science and Technology
Volume34
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999

Keywords

  • Anaerobic digestion
  • Biomass cake
  • Fouling
  • Microfiltration
  • Particle backtransport
  • Powdered activated carbon

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Flux enhancement with powdered activated carbon addition in the membrane anaerobic bioreactor'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this