Dear Colleagues,
The development of process-intensive technologies for wastewater treatment is a key factor to sustain population and industrial growth, while reducing their environmental impacts. Indeed, the achievement of more stringent quality standards for the discharge of treated wastewater into the environment by applying conventional technologies would require large areas and high operating costs. In recent years, membrane-based biotechnologies have been developed with the aim of increasing the treatment capacity of existing wastewater treatment plants and achieving higher-quality effluents, while reducing the plant’s footprint and energy consumption. Moreover, in light of complying with the EU policies for the transition toward a sustainable management of wastewater, the recovery of materials (nutrients, biopolymers, water) and energy should also be considered as a way toward the circular economy concept in the wastewater sector. Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) and membrane aerated biofilm reactors (MABRs) are certainly among the process-intensive technologies that are increasingly implemented for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, enabling the achievement of higher effluent standards, the removal of emerging micropollutants and a reduced energy requirement. The main advantages of these systems include a higher effluent quality, a lower carbon footprint and lower sludge production with respect to conventional systems. However, the complexity of such biotechnologies implies both design and management issues that must be properly addressed to fully exploit their advantages and avoid adverse effects that can limit their widespread application.
Specifically, fouling minimization and resource recovery from waste streams are considered two key topics in the currently available literature. Referring to the former, membrane fouling is affected by several factors, which are related to the physiological conditions of the bacterial cells. Indeed, the physical characteristics of the bacterial cellular membranes significantly affect the sludge filtration process in an MBR system. In this case, the membrane fouling is mainly linked to the production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) and to the cellular membrane hydrophobicity. Both these aspects impact the overall biological activity of the system and the filtration process, because they contribute to the formation of the “cake layer” (or “dynamic biomembrane”) that represent the system bottleneck.
Referring to the resource recovery aspects, in recent years the recovery of materials from the excess sludge has been receiving increasing interest. For example, phosphorus contained within the bacterial cytoplasm or polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) represents a precious resource to recover with a view of circular economy implementation in the field of wastewater treatment. In this sense, the implementation of innovative bioprocesses applicable both in the wastewater and sludge handling units for maximizing the resource recovery is advisable to better improve the appeal of such systems.
This Special Issue aims to focus on the application of membrane-based biotechnologies to achieve the intensification of municipal and industrial wastewater treatments, including the removal of emerging micropollutants, exploiting the possibility of recovery resources (e.g., phosphorus or PHA from biological sludge), and providing insights into the process knowledge and practices aimed at overcoming the current critical management issues. In particular, research papers that analyze and improve the production and assimilation process of protein constituents (EPS content reduction) in order to decrease the membrane fouling tendency are encouraged.
We are pleased to invite you to submit original research papers, case studies and brief review articles that demonstrate the strength of membrane-based biotechnologies and exploit their potential to achieve sustainable management of wastewater.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Prof. Dr. Gaetano Di Bella
Dr. Santo Fabio Corsino
Collection Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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