Study on the model binary mixtures for actual EPS extracted from the activated sludge in MBR on membrane fouling

Abstract In order to find a model solution to simulate actual extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) solution in terms of filterability behavior, a series of experiments were conducted in a dead-end unstirred cell with 0.1 μm polyvinylidene fluoride membranes using single/binary mixtures consisting of sodium alginate (SA), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and humic acid (HA). It can obtain that the presence of BSA and SA is a necessary condition for model the filtration behavior of the actual EPS solution. Meanwhile, compared the actual EPS solution with binary mixtures model EPS solution can find that BSA/SA=140/58.3 and SA/HA=107/28.5 can exhibit the similar filtration behavior as actual EPS, while BSA/HA are far from that of actual EPS solution. The suitable type and combination of simulated solution were determined to improve the consistency with EPS solution in actual MBR system.