A comprehensive study into fouling properties of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) extracted from bulk sludge and cake sludge in a mesophilic anaerobic membrane bioreactor.

This study focused on the fouling behaviors of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in a mesophilic anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) to obtain the relations of EPS specific constituents with membrane fouling. It was found that for the EPS extracted from bulk sludge, the LB-EPS induced the largest flux decline; however, for EPS extracted from cake sludge, the S-EPS caused the highest flux decline. The preferential rejection fraction by membrane further confirmed that the greater flux decline was exhibited with the higher percent rejection of EPS fractions. The adhesion and cohesion interactions of EPS fractions and membranes could explain the different rejection rates of the EPS components. The structural characteristics analysis indicated that the fouling layers of different EPS fractions with the greater loss of filterability had the smaller porosity. Further investigations demonstrated that these changes could be attributed to the different content of HPO-N in EPS fractions.