TY - JOUR
T1 - A comparison of gravity-driven membrane (GDM) reactor and biofiltration + GDM reactor for seawater reverse osmosis desalination pretreatment
AU - Lee, Seonki
AU - Suwarno, Stanislaus Raditya
AU - Quek, Bryan Wei Hong
AU - Kim, Lanhee
AU - Wu, Bing
AU - Chong, Tzyy Haur
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This study is under the Singapore Membrane Technology Centre Seawater Facility project (TBD-WTTM-1504-0002), which is supported by the PUB, Singapore's National Water Agency. The Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore is acknowledged for funding the Singapore Membrane Technology Centre (SMTC), Nanyang Technological University.
PY - 2019/2/4
Y1 - 2019/2/4
N2 - In this study, permeate quality, membrane performance, and microbial community in a gravity-driven microfiltration (GDM) reactor and a biofiltration (BF) + GDM reactor for seawater reverse osmosis (RO) desalination pretreatment were compared at both lab-scale and pilot-scale. The presence of BF column was more efficient in removing soluble organic substances by biosorption/biodegradation, leading to superior permeate quality from BF + GDM and subsequently lower RO fouling than GDM. Compared to the biofilm-saturated anthracite media, the granular activated carbon media in BF improved the assimilable organic substances removal in BF + GDM. Although less organic substances and microbial cells were accumulated on the membrane in BF + GDM, its permeate flux was 10–20% lower than GDM. Furthermore, BF lowered the amounts and diversity of prokaryotes (due to less organic substances) and eukaryotes (due to BF media rejection and lacking of prokaryotic preys) in the membrane biofilm of BF + GDM, but did not cause significant shifts of predominant species. Thus, the lower flux in BF + GDM was attributed to the limited predation and movement of eukaryotes in membrane biofilm, which may result in the formation of less porous and compact biofilm layer. The cost analysis indicated that BF + GDM-RO requires 5.2% less operating cost and 1.5% less water production cost than GDM-RO.
AB - In this study, permeate quality, membrane performance, and microbial community in a gravity-driven microfiltration (GDM) reactor and a biofiltration (BF) + GDM reactor for seawater reverse osmosis (RO) desalination pretreatment were compared at both lab-scale and pilot-scale. The presence of BF column was more efficient in removing soluble organic substances by biosorption/biodegradation, leading to superior permeate quality from BF + GDM and subsequently lower RO fouling than GDM. Compared to the biofilm-saturated anthracite media, the granular activated carbon media in BF improved the assimilable organic substances removal in BF + GDM. Although less organic substances and microbial cells were accumulated on the membrane in BF + GDM, its permeate flux was 10–20% lower than GDM. Furthermore, BF lowered the amounts and diversity of prokaryotes (due to less organic substances) and eukaryotes (due to BF media rejection and lacking of prokaryotic preys) in the membrane biofilm of BF + GDM, but did not cause significant shifts of predominant species. Thus, the lower flux in BF + GDM was attributed to the limited predation and movement of eukaryotes in membrane biofilm, which may result in the formation of less porous and compact biofilm layer. The cost analysis indicated that BF + GDM-RO requires 5.2% less operating cost and 1.5% less water production cost than GDM-RO.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/631656
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135419300983
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061368150&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.watres.2019.01.044
DO - 10.1016/j.watres.2019.01.044
M3 - Article
C2 - 30771709
SN - 0043-1354
VL - 154
SP - 72
EP - 83
JO - Water Research
JF - Water Research
ER -