Electrocoagulation enhanced gravity driven membrane bioreactor for advanced treatment of rural sewage

The daily discharge of rural sewage in China occupies 30 % of the national wastewater discharge, and developing an energy-efficient, easy to operate, and decentralized rural sewage treatment technology becomes an important task. In this work, a novel rural sewage treatment technology, Electrocoagulation enhanced Gravity-Driven Membrane Bioreactor (EC-GDMBR) was exploited for the rural sewage treatment under long-term operation (160 days). Two EC-GDMBRs with various module structures of ceramic membrane (horizontal module and side module) not only displayed the desirable effluent quality, but also sustained the stable flux (8–13 LMH). The electrocoagulation, electrooxidation, biodegradation, and separation in EC-GDMBRs were able to synergistically remove the particle matter, organic (CODCr effluent <11.6 ± 1.2 mg/L) and nutrients (NH3–N effluent <0.1 mg/L, TN effluent <8.5 mg/L, TP effluent <0.05 mg/L). Besides, the high permeability of ceramic membrane and large porosity of biofilm on its surface improved the sustainability of stable flux during the long-term operation. Moreover, by analyzing bacterial abundance, Extracellular Polymeric Substances, Adenosine Tri-Phosphate and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy, a large number of microorganisms grew and accumulated on the carrier, as well as formed the biofilm (23.46–659.9 μm), while Nitrobacteria (1.6–4.1 %) and Nitrate (0.01–0.06 %) exited in the carrier biofilms, promoting the nitrogen removal. Compared with EC-GDMBR with side module of ceramic membrane, EC-GDMBR with horizontal module of ceramic membrane has advantages in flux behavior, organic/nutrient removal, microbial abundance/activity, abundance of nitrogen removal functional bacteria and water permeability of biofilm, because the ceramic membrane of horizontal module can promote the uniform growth of biofilm and improve the uniformity of flow penetration distribution. In general, the findings of this work verify the reliability of EC-GDMBR for the sustainable operation of wastewater treatment and improve its application value of rural sewage treatment.