Background: The complex characteristics and unclear biological fate of biomacromolecules (BMM), including colloidal and soluble microbial products (SMP), extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and membrane surface foulants (MSF), are crucial factors that limit our understanding of membrane fouling in membrane bioreactors (MBRs).
Findings: In this study, the microbial transformation of BMM was investigated in a lab-scale MBR by well-controlled bioassay tests. The results of experimental measurements and mathematical modeling show that SMP, EPS, and MSF had different biodegradation behaviors and kinetic models. Based on the multi-exponential G models, SMP were mainly composed of slowly biodegradable polysaccharides (PS), proteins (PN), and non-biodegradable humic substances (HS). In contrast, EPS contained a large number of readily biodegradable PN, slowly biodegradable PS and HS. MSF were dominated by slowly biodegradable PS, which had a degradation rate constant similar to that of SMP-PS, while degradation behaviors of MSF-PN and MSF-HS were much more similar to those of EPS-PN and EPS-HS, respectively. In addition, the large-molecular weight (MW) compounds (>100 kDa) in BMM were found to have a faster microbial transformation rate compared to the small-MW compounds (<5 kDa). The parallel factor (PARAFAC) modeling of three-dimensional fluorescence excitation-emission matrix (EEM) spectra showed that the tryptophan-like PN were one of the major fractions in the BMM and they were more readily biodegradable than the HS. Besides microbial mineralization, humification and hydrolysis could be viewed as two important biotransformation mechanisms of large-MW compounds during the biodegradation process.
Significance: The results of this work can aid in tracking the origin of membrane foulants from the perspective of the biotransformation behaviors of SMP, EPS, and MSF.