TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of Aeration Intensity on Performance of Lab-Scale Quorum-Quenching Membrane Bioreactor
AU - Islam, Zia Ul
AU - Ayub, Mariam
AU - Chung, Shinho
AU - Oh, Heekyong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - Biofouling is one of the main drawbacks of membrane bioreactors (MBRs). Among the different methods, the quorum-quenching (QQ) technique is a novel method as it delays biofilm formation on the membrane surface through disruption of bacterial cell-to-cell communication and thus effectively mitigates membrane biofouling. QQ bacteria require a certain concentration of dissolved oxygen to show their best activities. Despite the importance of the amount of aeration, there have not been enough studies on aeration condition utilizing the separate determination of pure QQ effect and physical cleaning effect. This research aimed to find the optimum aeration intensity by separation of the two effects from QQ and physical cleaning. Three bead type conditions (no bead, vacant bead, and QQ beads) at three aeration intensities (1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 L/min representing low, medium, and high aeration intensity) were applied. From the results, no QQ effect and small QQ effect were observed at low and high aeration, while the greatest QQ effect (48.2% of 737 h improvement) was observed at medium aeration. The best performance was observed at high aeration with QQ beads having a 1536 h operational duration (303% improvement compared to the no bead condition); however, this excellent performance was attributed more to the physical cleaning effect than to the QQ effect.
AB - Biofouling is one of the main drawbacks of membrane bioreactors (MBRs). Among the different methods, the quorum-quenching (QQ) technique is a novel method as it delays biofilm formation on the membrane surface through disruption of bacterial cell-to-cell communication and thus effectively mitigates membrane biofouling. QQ bacteria require a certain concentration of dissolved oxygen to show their best activities. Despite the importance of the amount of aeration, there have not been enough studies on aeration condition utilizing the separate determination of pure QQ effect and physical cleaning effect. This research aimed to find the optimum aeration intensity by separation of the two effects from QQ and physical cleaning. Three bead type conditions (no bead, vacant bead, and QQ beads) at three aeration intensities (1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 L/min representing low, medium, and high aeration intensity) were applied. From the results, no QQ effect and small QQ effect were observed at low and high aeration, while the greatest QQ effect (48.2% of 737 h improvement) was observed at medium aeration. The best performance was observed at high aeration with QQ beads having a 1536 h operational duration (303% improvement compared to the no bead condition); however, this excellent performance was attributed more to the physical cleaning effect than to the QQ effect.
KW - Aeration intensity
KW - Biofouling mitigation
KW - Cell-immobilizing beads (CIBs)
KW - Membrane bioreactors
KW - Quorum quenching (QQ)
KW - Rhodococcus sp. BH4
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126550485&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/membranes12030289
DO - 10.3390/membranes12030289
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126550485
SN - 2077-0375
VL - 12
JO - Membranes
JF - Membranes
IS - 3
M1 - 289
ER -