Characterisation and modelling of fouling in membrane bioreactors

A membrane bioreactor used for denitrification of a synthetic substrate was studied in term of membrane fouling. For standard pH and temperature conditions, subcritical conditions were defined to ensure the process stability. The stepwise method was used to determine the critical flux for the deposition of colloidal particles. Under standard physicochemical conditions, only a low and constant fouling resistance was observed if the permeate flux was maintained below the critical flux. The influence of physicochemical variations was then investigated by varying pH and temperature in the biological reactor. It was observed that, when the pH value was higher than a critical one, the membrane was rapidly fouled. This maximum admissible pH value decreased when the temperature increased. On analysing the reversible nature of fouling and the variations of ionic concentrations with the pH, the role of carbonate calcium precipitation was pointed out. By using classical filtration models, it was shown that the fouling mechanism could be the deposition of CaCO3 particles formed in the bulk suspension by bulk crystallisation.