title: Microbial electrochemical nutrient recovery in anaerobic osmotic membrane bioreactors.
abstract: This study demonstrates that by incorporating a microbial electrochemical unit into an anaerobic osmotic membrane bioreactor (AnOMBR), the system addressed several challenges faced by traditional anaerobic membrane bioreactors and recovered biogas, nitrogen, and phosphorus while maintaining high effluent quality with low dissolved methane. The microbial recovery cell (MRC)-AnOMBR system showed excellent organic (>93%) and phosphorus removal (>99%) and maintained effluent COD below 20 mg/L. Furthermore, the reactor effectively recovered up to 65% PO43-and 45% NH4+from the influent, which can be further improved if membranes with higher selectivity are used. Nutrients removal from bulk solution mitigated NH4+penetration to the draw solution and reduced scaling potential caused by PO43-. The maximum methane yield was 0.19 L CH4/g COD, and low methane (<2.5 mL CH4/L) was detected in the effluent. Further improvement can be made by increasing charge efficiency for better nutrient and energy recovery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Dianxun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Dongya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Tzahi Y
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Cath
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA. Electronic address: zhiyong.ren@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Zhiyong Jason
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D019149:Bioreactors; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D009995:Osmosis; D010758:Phosphorus; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid; D018508:Water Purification
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D010758:Phosphorus
keywords: Anaerobic osmotic membrane bioreactor; Dissolved methane; Forward osmosis; Microbial electrochemical technology; Nutrient recovery