Coupling a Simple and Generic Membrane Fouling Model with Biological Dynamics: Application to the Modeling of an Anaerobic Membrane BioReactor (AnMBR)

Abstract

A simple model is developed for membrane fouling, taking into account two main fouling phenomena: cake formation, due to attached solids onto the membrane surface and pores clogging, due to retained compounds inside the pores. The model is coupled with a simple anaerobic digestion model for describing the dynamics of an Anaerobic Membrane BioReactor (AnMBR). In simulations, we investigate its qualitative behavior: it is shown that the model exhibits satisfying properties in terms of flux decrease due to membrane fouling. Comparing simulation and experimental data, the model is shown to predict quite well the dynamics of an AnMBR. The simulated flux best fits the experimental flux with a correlation coefficient r2=0.968 for the calibration data set and r2=0.938 for the validation data set. General discussions are given on possible control strategies to limit fouling and optimize the flux production. We show in simulations that these strategies allow one to increase the mean production flux to 33 L/(h.m2), whereas without control it was 18 L/(h.m2).

Adaptive Optimal Model-Based Control of Membrane Systems Fouling: A Generic Robust Approach

“…To simulate the functioning of a biological system, we chose to couple a biokinetic model of the anaerobic digestion including the dynamics of the SMPs (cf. (Benyahia et al, 2013)) to a fouling model initially proposed in (Benyahia et al, 2016 andBenyahia et al, 2024). This model describes the dynamics of a well known two step model of the anaerobic digestion that has been validated several times on real data, including the dynamics of the so-called Soluble Microbial Products model named "AM2b", cf.…”