Abstract
In this study, the seasonality of the biofouling behavior of pilot-scale membrane bioreactors (MBRs) run in parallel with vacant sheets and quorum quenching (QQ) sheets using real municipal wastewater was investigated. QQ media delayed fouling, but low temperatures caused severe biofouling. The greater amount of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) produced in cold weather was responsible for the faster biofouling of a membrane, even with QQ media. There were significant negative relationships between EPS levels and water temperature. Cold weather was detrimental to the degradation of quorum sensing signal molecules by QQ sheets, whose activity was restored with a higher dose of QQ bacteria. The QQ bacteria in the sheets experienced a slight loss in activity during the early stage of the field test, but survived in the pilot-scale MBR fed with real wastewater. There were no significant discrepancies in treatment efficiency among conventional, vacant, and QQ MBRs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 912-924 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Biofouling |
Volume | 34 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 Sept 14 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Convergence Technology Program [number 2015001640001] funded by the Korea Ministry of Environment and the Mid-career Research Program [number 2016R1A2B2013776] funded by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Aquatic Science
- Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
- Water Science and Technology