Bioelectrochemical system (BES) has a great potential for cost-effective municipal wastewater treatment due to low sludge production and power generation. However, the effluent quality (e.g., chemical oxygen demand (COD) and turbidity) from BES generally cannot meet discharge standard. Forward osmosis (FO) is an osmotically-driven membrane process where water flows from a low-salinity feed solution (FS) to a high-salinity draw solution (DS) through a semi-permeable membrane. FO has gained much interest for the potential use in water and wastewater treatment, where the non-porous FO membrane with lower fouling propensity acts as a barrier to solute as well as the contaminants in the wastewater stream, thus prolonging their residence time in reactor and providing a high-level pretreatment for wastewater treatment and reclamation. This presentation will focus on our recent progress on the integration of FO and BES in the aspects of a) wastewater treatment (i.e., COD and nutrients removal); b) FO membrane performance (water flux and solute flux); c) FO membrane fouling compared to the conventional osmotic membrane bioreactor; d) power production. Finally, bidirectional solute diffusion through FO membrane will also be discussed.

Osmotic membrane electrochemical bioreactor for wastewater treatment and power production

251st National Meeting (2016)

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