Effect of biomass features on oxygen transfer in Conventional Activated Sludge and Membrane BioReactor systems

2018

The present study reports the results on the comparison between the oxygen transfer efficiency in a conventional activated sludge (CAS) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) system. The oxygen transfer was evaluated by means of the oxygen transfer coefficient (kLa)20 and α-factor calculation, under different operating conditions and with different activated sludge features, including total suspended solids (TSS) concentration, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) content and composition, sludge viscosity and size of the flocs. The (kLa)20 and α-factor showed an exponential decreasing trends with TSS in the CAS and MBR, even if it was noted that the (kLa)20 dependence on TSS was stronger in the …