A modelling approach to study the fouling of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor for industrial wastewater treatment

•A model has been proposed to simulate fouling in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor.•The proposed model is able to simulate the major foulants concentrations in the AnMBR.•A numerical tool has been developed to determine the deposit cake composition.•The Transmembrane pressure jump is due to a decrease in cake porosity.

An Anaerobic Membrane BioReactors (AnMBR) model is presented in this paper based on the combination of a simple fouling model and the Anaerobic Model 2b (AM2b) to describe biological and membrane dynamic responses in an AnMBR. In order to enhance the model calibration and validation, Trans-Membrane Pressure (TMP), Total Suspended Solid (TSS), COD, Volatile Fatty Acid (VFA) and methane production were measured. The model shows a satisfactory description of the experimental data with R2 ≈ 0.9 for TMP data and R2 ≈ 0.99 for biological parameters. This new model is also proposed as a numerical tool to predict the deposit mass composition of suspended solid and Soluble Microbial Products (SMP) on the membrane surface. The effect of SMP deposit on the TMP jump phenomenon is highlighted. This new approach offers interesting perspectives for fouling prediction and the on-line control of an AnMBR process.

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