The difficulty of dissolved methane recovery remains a major hurdle for mainstream anaerobic wastewater treatment processes. We recently proposed solvent-based membrane contactor (SMC) for high (>90%) methane recovery over a wide temperature range and net-energy production. Here, we investigate the methane recovery efficacy of the SMC process by using an AnMBR effluent from treating food waste leachate. We observed almost identical methane transfer kinetics to the process employing foulant-free methane-saturated feed solutions, with >92% methane recoveries, showing that organic foulants have insignificant impacts on the methane transport in the SMC. We then performed two different membrane contactor experiments: direct-contact membrane-distillation (DCMD, with transmembrane water vapor flow) and SMC (no water vapor flow). From the negligible fouling observed in the SMC experiment, opposite to the DCMD, we elucidate that the absence of water vapor flow renders the SMC process intrinsically robust to membrane fouling. With the low fouling propensity of the SMC process under highly fouling environments, our study highlights the feasibility of SMC processes to enhance the energy production in mainstream anaerobic wastewater treatment processes.

溶解甲烷的回收难度仍然是主流厌氧废水处理工艺的主要障碍。我们最近提出了基于溶剂的膜接触器（SMC），可在较宽的温度范围内和较高的净能量生产中实现高（> 90％）的甲烷回收率。在这里，我们通过处理食物垃圾渗滤液中的AnMBR废水来研究SMC工艺的甲烷回收效率。我们观察到与采用无污垢的甲烷饱和进料溶液的过程几乎相同的甲烷转移动力学，甲烷回收率> 92％，表明有机污垢对SMC中的甲烷传输影响不大。然后，我们进行了两个不同的膜接触器实验：直接接触式膜蒸馏（DCMD，具有跨膜水蒸气流量）和SMC（无水蒸气流量）。从SMC实验中观察到的与DCMD相反的可忽略的结垢，我们阐明了水蒸气流的缺乏使SMC过程对膜结垢具有固有的鲁棒性。鉴于SMC工艺在高污染环境下的低结垢倾向，我们的研究突出了SMC工艺在主流厌氧废水处理工艺中提高能源生产的可行性。