Imperial College London
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Emeritus ProfessorNigelGraham

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Senior Research Investigator
 
 
 
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Contact

 

n.graham Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Judith Barritt +44 (0)20 7594 5967

 
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Location

 

406Skempton BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Xu:2020:10.1016/j.watres.2020.115892,
author = {Xu, L and Graham, NJD and Wei, C and Zhang, L and Yu, W},
doi = {10.1016/j.watres.2020.115892},
journal = {Water Research},
title = {Abatement of the membrane biofouling: performance of an in-situ integrated bioelectrochemical-ultrafiltration system},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.115892},
volume = {179},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The practical applications of membrane-based water treatment techniques are constrained by the problem of membrane fouling. Various studies have revealed that interactions between extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and the membrane surface determine the extent of irreversible fouling. Herein, we describe a novel bioelectrochemical system (BES) integrated with an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane in order to provide an enhanced antifouling property. It was found that the integrated BES membrane system had a superior performance compared to a conventional (control) UF system, as manifested by a much lower development of transmembrane pressure. The BES significantly reduced microbial viability in the membrane tank and the imposed electrode potential contributed to the degradation of biopolymers, which favored the alleviation of membrane fouling. Notably, the electron transfer between the acclimated microorganisms and the conductive membrane in the BES integrated system exhibited an increasing trend with the operation time, indicating a gradual increase in microbial electrical activity. Correspondingly, the accumulation of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) on the membrane surface of the BES integrated system showed a substantial decrease compared to the control system, which could be attributed to a series of synergistic effects induced by the BES integration. The differences in the microbial diversity between the control and the BES integrated system revealed the microbial selectivity of the poised potential. Specifically, microbial strains with relatively high EPS production, like the genus of Zoogloea and Methyloversatilis, were reduced significantly in the BES integrated system, while the expression of the electroactive bacteria was promoted, which facilitated extracellular electron transfer (EET) and therefore the bioelectrochemical reactions. Overall, this study has presented a feasible and promising new approach for membrane fouling mitigation during the
AU  - Xu,L
AU  - Graham,NJD
AU  - Wei,C
AU  - Zhang,L
AU  - Yu,W
DO  - 10.1016/j.watres.2020.115892
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0043-1354
TI  - Abatement of the membrane biofouling: performance of an in-situ integrated bioelectrochemical-ultrafiltration system
T2  - Water Research
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.115892
UR  - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32388047
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/79840
VL  - 179
ER  -
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