Integrated attached and suspended biomass moving bed membrane bioreactor for municipal wastewater treatment: performance and biokinetic study

A new moving bed membrane bioreactor (MBMBR) configuration was developed for the treatment of real municipal wastewater. A regular membrane bioreactor (RMBR) and an integrated moving bed membrane bioreactor (IMBMBR) were operated to evaluate carbon and nutrient removal, nitrification and denitrification, microbial community, kinetics behavior, and membrane fouling. The results showed that the quality of the effluent was significantly better with the IMBMBR. The removal efficiencies of COD and BOD5 with the IMBMBR were 90.94 +/- 4.4% and 95.39 +/- 3.96%, respectively, compared to 87.65 +/- 4.8% and 93.84 +/- 3.52%, with the RMBR. The IMBMBR configuration membrane showed less fouling than the RMBR. The attenuation of membrane fouling in IMBMBR is likely due to the lower concentrations of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). In terms of biokinetics, modified Stover-Kincannon and second-order models fitted the experimental data more smoothly than the first-order model did. The results of this research indicate that the wastewater treatment sector can achieve a more acceptable effluent quality by replacing RMBR with IMBMBR.