Preliminary study of osmotic membrane bioreactor: effects of draw solution on water flux and air scouring on fouling.

Preliminary study on a novel osmotic membrane bioreactor (OMBR) was explored. Objective of this study was to investigate the effects of draw solution on membrane flux and air scouring at the feed side on fouling tendency in a pilot OMBR system composing the anoxic/aerobic and forward osmosis (FO) processes. Domestic sewage was the raw feed, FO membrane from HTI and NaCl/MgSO4 draw solutions were used in the experiments.

Experimental studies and modeling on concentration polarization in forward osmosis.

Concentration polarization (CP) is an important issue in forward osmosis (FO) processes and it is believed that the coupled effect of dilutive internal CP (DICP) and concentrative external CP (CECP) limits FO flux. The objective of this study was to distinguish individual contribution of different types of DICP and CECP via modeling and to validate it by pilot studies. The influence of DICP/CECP on FO flux has been investigated in this study.