Related Data for: Application of Novel Alginate – Powdered Activated Carbon – Quorum Quenching Bacteria (APQ) Beads for the Biofouling Control and Sludge Modification in MBR Systems

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) has been widely accepted as an advanced wastewater treatment technology to meet more stringent wastewater discharge standards owing to its distinctive advantages, including high treatment efficiency, low sludge production and a small footprint as compared to conventional activated sludge. Its global market growth rate has been reported to be an average annual growth rate of 11.6-12.7% with around $1.2 billion currently. However, membrane fouling, a combination of pore-blocking on membrane surface and biofilm-growing on the membrane, is still a bottleneck in extensive growth of MBR markets, as around 60% of MBR operating cost is directly related to biofouling. The introduction of quorum quenching (QQ) bacterial, which disrupts the formation of the biofouling layer on the immersed membrane surface, holds the promise to inhibit biofouling problem for MBRs as a new biofouling control paradigm. However, practical issues on the cost and stability of QQ are yet to be resolved, and none existing techniques have been shown to be stable against harsh environmental conditions, and economical feasiblility for large-scale application is not clear. To overcome these issues, we propose a novel QQ microbial immobilization strategy, which utilizes powdered activated carbon (PAC) for sludge modification and incorporates PAC with the QQ bacteria in alginate-PAC-QQ (APQ beads), for enhanced biofouling control. Our proof-of-concept study showed that compared to conventional MBR, the fouling rate of an APQ beads supplemented MBR, was significantly alleviated by 5 times. In addition, it also improves the sludge characteristics by doubling the floc size and enhancing sludge dewaterability. With the modification of sludge properties in MBR, the fouling problem can be further reduced. And more importantly, PAC and QQ bacteria can be recovered and regenerated, thus significantly reduce the operational cost. This proposed project is to construct a pilot-scale of APQ beads supplemented MBR system for long-term