Nutrient Removal Intensification with MABR – Developing a Process Model Supported by Piloting

Peeters, Jeff; Long, Zebo; Houweling, Dwight; Côté, Pierre; Snowling, Spencer

doi:10.2175/193864717821494204

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…MABRs provide a stratified redox environment that is appropriate for studying nitrogen and sulfur cycling; specifically, they provide a way to observe both microbial population selection in concert with nitrogen and sulfur speciation. In addition, MABRs are energy efficient, and thus are increasingly being considered for full‐scale wastewater treatment (Heffernan et al ., 2017; Houweling et al ., 2017; Peeters et al ., 2017). We contend that understanding how microbes interact in MABRs can inform our understanding of both microbial cross‐feeding and bioreactor design approaches that achieve effective nitrogen removal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sulfide alters microbial functional potential in a methane and nitrogen cycling biofilm reactor

Vela

Bristow

Marchant

et al. 2020

Environmental Microbiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cross-feeding of metabolites between coexisting cells leads to complex and interconnected elemental cycling and microbial interactions. These relationships influence overall community function and can be altered by changes in substrate availability. Here, we used isotopic rate measurements and metagenomic sequencing to study how cross-feeding relationships changed in response to stepwise increases of sulfide concentrations in a membraneaerated biofilm reactor that was fed with methane and ammonium. Results showed that sulfide: (i) decreased nitrite oxidation rates but increased ammonia oxidation rates; (ii) changed the denitrifying community and increased nitrous oxide production; and (iii) induced dissimilatory nitrite reduction to ammonium (DNRA). We infer that inhibition of nitrite oxidation resulted in higher nitrite availability for DNRA, anammox, and nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation. In other words, sulfide likely disrupted microbial cross-feeding between AOB and NOB and induced cross-feeding between AOB and nitrite reducing organisms. Furthermore, these cross-feeding relationships were spatially distributed between biofilm and planktonic phases of the reactor. These results indicate that using sulfide as an electron donor will promote N 2 O and ammonium production, which is generally not desirable in engineered systems.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sulfide alters microbial functional potential in a methane and nitrogen cycling biofilm reactor

Vela

Bristow

Marchant

et al. 2020

Environmental Microbiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this study, both MABRs were continued under nonscoured mode; however, continuous aeration was supplied to R4. Since the ammonia loading rate has been a parameter of interest in characterizing nitri cation e ciency, a lower ammonia loading rate was selected in this experiment, comparable to the loading rate used in previous studies that reported higher ammonia removal rates (Lin et (Peeters et al, 2017). In this study, it was hypothesized that using a combination of lower ammonia loading rate and a lower C:N (< 3) wastewater, the MABR e uent that does not require downstream polishing can be generated.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few numbers of investigations using hybrid bio lm and activated sludge systems observed denitri cation activity and hypothesized that part of denitrifying activity might belong to the bio lm, but the report lacked further analysis to con rm the hypothesis(Germain et al, 2018;Ito et al, 2019). A study byPeeters et al (2017) reported relatively higher nitri cation rates of 1.2 and 2.6 g/m 2 .d in a hybrid MABR-activated sludge system where denitri cation occurred in the suspended sludge zone rather than the bio lm zone(Peeters et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…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). The greatly improved NRs result from high oxygen transfer rates (OTRs) in MABRs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent progress using membrane aerated biofilm reactors for wastewater treatment

Wagner

Carlson

et al. 2021

Water Science and Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Nutrient Removal Intensification with MABR – Developing a Process Model Supported by Piloting

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Sulfide alters microbial functional potential in a methane and nitrogen cycling biofilm reactor

Sulfide alters microbial functional potential in a methane and nitrogen cycling biofilm reactor

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

Recent progress using membrane aerated biofilm reactors for wastewater treatment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About