Establishing mainstream nitrite shunt process in membrane aerated biofilm reactors: Impact of organic carbon and biofilm scouring intensity

Mehrabi, Sadaf; Houweling, Dwight; Dagnew, Martha

doi:10.1016/j.jwpe.2020.101460

Cited by 24 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Under continuous aeration condition, the TN removal e ciency remained comparable despite the difference in scouring modes. This observation is quite different from the results reported in the intermittently-aerated reactors (R1 and R3) and also reported by Mehrabi et al (2020) that indicated a higher TN removal rate of non-scoured MABRs compared to normally-scoured MABRs when intermittent aeration was supplied. That might be justi ed as when continuous air is introduced to the process, the scouring has no impact on total nitrogen removal e ciency due to the excess air available within the bio lm layers.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Comparing ammonia and total nitrogen removal rates and e ciencies in two continuously-aerated MABRs (R2 and R4) but under normal and non-scoured conditions showed a 20% more ammonia removal in R2 compared to R4. This agrees with the nding obtained in (Mehrabi et al, 2020), where normal scouring led to a higher ammonia removal e ciency than the non-scoured MABRs. The higher ammonia removal corresponding with normal scouring is expected to relate with the scouring of the outer heterotrophic carbon oxidizing bio lm layer resulting in a reduced mass transfer resistance for ammonia diffusion through bio lm layers.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The ammonia and total nitrogen removal performance under a lower loading rate of 1.6 g/m 2 .d, resulting in HRT of 4 h, were characterized using a second pair of MABR pilots (R3 and R4). The MABRs were continued from previous research, where they had been running under non-scoured and intermittent aeration mode for 365 d (Mehrabi et al, 2020). In this study, both MABRs were continued under nonscoured mode; however, continuous aeration was supplied to R4.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Single-Stage Biofilm-Based Total Nitrogen Removal in a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor: Impact of Aeration Mode, HRT and Scouring Intensity

Mehrabi¹,

Houweling²,

Dagnew³

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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High energy costs, organic carbon availability, and space limitation are some of the barriers faced by wastewater treatment processes. This research investigates the impact of membrane aeration mode, scouring intensity, and loading rate in a single-stage total nitrogen removal process in a membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR). Under ammonia loading of 2.7 g N/m2.d, continuous process aeration led to 1.7 g NH4-N/m2.d and 0.8 g TN/m2.d removal, respectively. Conversely, intermittent (5/12 min on/off) aeration resulted in 35% less ammonia removal but 34% higher total nitrogen (TN) removal. The MABR under ammonia load of 1.6 g N/m2.d showed an enhanced effluent quality with an average of 2.5 mg/L effluent ammonia concentration. This finding highlights the nitrification potential of a flow-through MABR as a standalone treatment step without any downstream process. Also, slough-off, a common issue in the biofilm process and was hypothesized to reduce the removal efficiency, showed increased ammonia removal rates by 20%. The microbial analysis indicated the dominant AOB and NOB species as Nitrosomonas spp. and Nitrospira spp, respectively. Moreover, the relative abundance of denitrifying bacteria (40.5%) were found twice in intermittently-aerated MABR compared to the continuously-aerated one (20.5%). However, NOB and denitrifying bacteria relative abundances were comparable where continuous air was supplied.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Single-Stage Biofilm-Based Total Nitrogen Removal in a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor: Impact of Aeration Mode, HRT and Scouring Intensity

Mehrabi¹,

Houweling²,

Dagnew³

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…In this study, the HRT of MABR is set to 12.5 h for all simulations. This is based on the findings of previous studies [48][49][50], which have indicated that Nitrogen treatment performances are strongly affected by HRT. On the one hand, HRT higher than 12 h may inhibit heterotrophic denitrification thus leading to nitrite and/or nitrate accumulation.…”

Section: Mabr Hydrodynamic Modelmentioning

confidence: 90%

Simulation of Alternative Process Schemes for Hydrofluoric and Phosphoric Acid Stream Treatment and Nutrient Recovery

Ohanessian

Barca

Soric

et al. 2023

Process Integr Optim Sustain

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Hydrofluoric and phosphoric acid streams produced by the microelectronic industry usually present high flow and high contents of phosphorus, nitrogen, fluorine, and organic carbon. This study aims at evaluating the efficiency and suitability of alternative process schemes for the treatment and valorization of hydrofluoric and phosphoric acid streams. A comparative approach is followed, based on the simulation of different process schemes, each involving several steps of physicochemical and biological treatments. The main objectives are to compare (i) the treatment efficiency, (ii) the consumption of chemical reagents, and (iii) the recovery of high-value by-products (e.g. calcium fluoride, struvite, and hydroxyapatite), and hence to identify the most suitable process scheme. Furthermore, this study contributes to the development of chemical precipitation and bioconversion models that can be applied for further simulation studies on wastewater treatment processes. The results indicate that the use of calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH2)) as the only source of Ca 2+ and OHions for the precipitation steps is a promising way to reduce the total consumption of chemical reagents while recovering high purity (> 98%) calcium fluoride and struvite. Moreover, the use of a membrane aerated biofilm reactor after the precipitation steps may further decrease organic carbon and nitrogen contents below 125 g COD.m -3 and 30 g N.m -3 , thus allowing effluent discharge to natural waters.Overall, this study gives useful information for the development of innovative treatment 2 processes and it provides crucial data for the selection of the most promising alternative schemes.

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“…In MABRs, the oxygen supply in the lumen can be manipulated to create an inner oxygen-rich zone and outer oxygen-depleted zone in the biofilm, housing diverse ecological niches for a range of microbial functions in the same biofilm. The advantages of MABR technology include high effluent quality (Sunner et al 2018;Sathyamoorthy et al 2019), high carbon processing efficiency (Houweling & Daigger 2019;Mehrabi et al 2020), up to 100% oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) (Heffernan et al 2017;Bicudo et al 2019), and compact reactor footprints (Sunner et al 2018). Compared to other biofilm reactors, like Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) with a typical designed nitrification rate (NR) of 0.5 g N/m 2 -d, MABRs achieve greatly improved NRs of 1.0-3.0 g N/m 2 -d (Côté et al 2015;Kunetz et al 2016;Peeters et al 2017aPeeters et al , 2017bUnderwood et al 2018;Nathan et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent progress using membrane aerated biofilm reactors for wastewater treatment

Wagner

Carlson

et al. 2021

Water Science and Technology

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The membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR), which is based on the counter diffusion of the electron donors and acceptors into the biofilm, represents a novel technology for wastewater treatment. When process air or oxygen is supplied, the MBfR is known as the membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR), which has high oxygen transfer rate and efficiency, promoting microbial growth and activity within the biofilm. Over the past few decades, lab-scale studies have helped researchers and practitioners understand the relevance of influencing factors and biological transformations in MABRs. In recent years, pilot- to full-scale installations are increasing along with process modeling. The resulting accumulated knowledge has greatly improved understanding of the counter-diffusional biological process, with new challenges and opportunities arising. Therefore, it is crucial to provide new insights by conducting this review. This paper reviews wastewater treatment advancements using MABR technology, including design and operational considerations, microbial community ecology, and process modeling. Treatment performance of pilot- to full-scale MABRs for process intensification in existing facilities is assessed. This paper also reviews other emerging applications of MABRs, including sulfur recovery, industrial wastewater, and xenobiotics bioremediation, space-based wastewater treatment, and autotrophic nitrogen removal. In conclusion, commercial applications demonstrate that MABR technology is beneficial for pollutants (COD, N, P, xenobiotics) removal, resource recovery (e.g., sulfur), and N2O mitigation. Further research is needed to increase packing density while retaining efficient external mass transfer, understand the microbial interactions occurring, address existing assumptions to improve process modeling and control, and optimize the operational conditions with site-specific considerations.

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Establishing mainstream nitrite shunt process in membrane aerated biofilm reactors: Impact of organic carbon and biofilm scouring intensity

Cited by 24 publications

References 31 publications

Single-Stage Biofilm-Based Total Nitrogen Removal in a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor: Impact of Aeration Mode, HRT and Scouring Intensity

Single-Stage Biofilm-Based Total Nitrogen Removal in a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor: Impact of Aeration Mode, HRT and Scouring Intensity

Simulation of Alternative Process Schemes for Hydrofluoric and Phosphoric Acid Stream Treatment and Nutrient Recovery

Recent progress using membrane aerated biofilm reactors for wastewater treatment

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