Modeling salt accumulation in osmotic membrane bioreactors: Implications for FO membrane selection and system operation

Novel osmotic membrane bioreactors (OMBRs) have been recently reported in the literature. An OMBR uses a dense salt-rejecting forward osmosis (FO) membrane, which exhibits high retention of organic matter and various other contaminants. Meanwhile, the high rejection nature also leads to the accumulation of salts in the bioreactor, which can adversely affect the biological activities as well as the FO water flux. A salt accumulation model is developed in the current study. Our model suggests that both the bioreactor salt concentration and the FO water flux are controlled by membrane properties (water permeability A, salt permeability B, mass transfer coefficient Km, and membrane orientation relative to the draw solution) and the OMBR operational conditions (salt concentration of the influent wastewater, draw solution concentration, hydraulic retention time (HRT), and sludge retention time (SRT)). The salt accumulation is contributed by both the influent wastewater and the reverse diffusion of solutes from the draw solution, and is directly proportional to the volumetric concentration factor (i.e., the SRT/HRT ratio). The relative importance of reverse diffusion over contribution from influent solutes is governed by the membrane selectivity. For a relatively selective membrane (B/A ≪ the osmotic pressure of the influent water), solute reverse diffusion has negligible effect on OMBR performance. In contrast, the salt accumulation and FO water flux reduction are governed by reverse diffusion for B/A greater than the osmotic pressure of the influent water. The current study reveals the critical importance of the B/A ratio and HRT/SRT ratio for optimized OMBR operation.

Research highlights▶ Salt accumulation in OMBR reduces FO water flux. ▶ Salt accumulation is proportional to SRT/HRT. ▶ Salt accumulation is contributed by both influent solute and reverse diffusion. ▶ The optimal B/A ratio for OMBR is ∼0.1πin.