Characteristics of simultaneous nitrogen and phosphorus removal in a pilot-scale sequencing anoxic/anaerobic membrane bioreactor at various conditions

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of pilot-scale sequencing anoxic/anaerobic membrane bioreactor (SAM) process under various real situations. During the pilot experiment, the effect of three important operational parameters, such as hydraulic retention time (HRT), solids retention time (SRT) and internal recycling time mode were estimated and the long-term membrane fouling behaviour was also investigated. During the operation period, the COD removal efficiency was higher than 95% regardless of change of operational conditions because the membrane significantly contributed to remove COD by the complete retention of all particulate COD and macromolecular COD components. The change of Ax/An ratio representing internal recycling time mode significantly affected on nitrogen and phosphorus removal. As increasing Ax/An ratio, nitrogen removal efficiency increased but phosphorus removal efficiency decreased. As HRT decreased, phosphorus removal efficiency increased and nitrogen removal efficiency also increased until a certain limit of HRT (6.5 h in this study). However, when HRT decreased over the limit, nitrogen removal efficiency decreased because of insufficient nitrification. Relation between phosphorus removal efficiency and SRT was a little bit complex because SRT determined both the phosphorus content in the sludge and the sludge wasting rate. However, in this study, the shorter SRT resulted in the higher phosphorus removal efficiency. The effect of changes in all operational conditions was sensitive on phosphorus rather than on nitrogen removal efficiency. The increasing in influent flowrate resulted in the increase of flux and caused a rapid membrane fouling. Thus, the flux of 7.7 L/m2/h was more desirable compared to the 10.7 or 15.4 L/m2/h in this study.