Modeling water flux in osmotic membrane bioreactor by adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system and artificial neural network.

Osmotic Membrane Bioreactor (OMBR) is an emerging technology for wastewater treatment with membrane fouling as a major challenge. This study aims to develop Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models in simulating and predicting water flux in OMBR. Mixed liquor suspended solid (MLSS), electrical conductivity (EC) and dissolved oxygen (DO) were used as model inputs. Good prediction was demonstrated by both ANFIS models with R2 of 0.9755 and 0.9861, and ANN models with R2 of 0.9404 and 0.9817, for thin film composite (TFC) and cellulose triacetate (CTA) membranes, respectively. The root mean square error for TFC (0.2527) and CTA (0.1230) in ANFIS models was lower than in ANN models at 0.4049 and 0.1449. Sensitivity analysis showed that EC was the most important factor for both TFC and CTA membranes in ANN models, while EC (TFC) and MLSS (CTA) are key parameters in ANFIS models.