The application of nitric oxide to control biofouling of membrane bioreactors

Jinxue Luo, Jinsong Zhang, Robert J. Barnes, Xiaohui Tan, Diane Mcdougald, Anthony G. Fane, Guoqiang Zhuang, Staffan Kjelleberg, Yehuda Cohen, Scott A. Rice*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

A novel strategy to control membrane bioreactor (MBR) biofouling using the nitric oxide (NO) donor compound PROLI NONOate was examined. When the biofilm was pre-established on membranes at transmembrane pressure (TMP) of 88-90kPa, backwashing of the membrane module with 80μM PROLI NONOate for 45min once daily for 37 days reduced the fouling resistance (Rf) by 56%. Similarly, a daily, 1h exposure of the membrane to 80μM PROLI NONOate from the commencement of MBR operation for 85 days resulted in reduction of the TMP and Rf by 32.3% and 28.2%. The microbial community in the control MBR was observed to change from days 71 to 85, which correlates with the rapid TMP increase. Interestingly, NO-treated biofilms at 85 days had a higher similarity with the control biofilms at 71 days relative to the control biofilms at 85 days, indicating that the NO treatment delayed the development of biofilm bacterial community. Despite this difference, sequence analysis indicated that NO treatment did not result in a significant shift in the dominant fouling species. Confocal microscopy revealed that the biomass of biopolymers and microorganisms in biofilms were all reduced on the PROLI NONOate-treated membranes, where there were reductions of 37.7% for proteins and 66.7% for microbial cells, which correlates with the reduction in TMP. These results suggest that NO treatment could be a promising strategy to control biofouling in MBRs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)549-560
Number of pages12
JournalMicrobial Biotechnology
Volume8
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2015
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors. Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.

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