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Influence of aeración intensity on the performance of the filtración process in a MBR pilot plant

Abstract:

The high quality effluent produced by membrane bioreactors (MBR) enables the protection of water resources, and offers great prospects for reuse. However membrane fouling problems have limited the implementation of these processes at industrial scale. In this paper, the influence of aeration intensity on the performance of the filtration process in a pilot plant was studied. Furthermore, the membrane fouling was evaluated considering the shear stresses on the membrane surface, which was determined by computational fluid dynamics. The simulation results showed that a change in the aeration flow from 1.7 m 3·h -1 to 2.8 m 3·h -1 (SSLM = 6.000 mg·1 -1) caused an increase the average shear stress in 18%, and altered significantly its distribution on the membrane surface, reducing its rate of fouling.