Membrane fouling is a major bottleneck of almost all pressure-driven membrane filtration processes that limits their widespread applications. Improvement of hydrodynamics conditions is one of the most effective methods for membrane fouling control. This paper assesses a rotating biological contactor (RBC) integrated with membrane (RBC-MI) filtration that potentially offers inherent membrane fouling control as well as enhances biological performance, in which the membrane is placed inside the RBC bioreactor. Results show that the RBC-MI system achieves 84% of COD, 96.7% ammonium, 74% total nitrogen, 89% total phosphorus, and 96% turbidity removals. The integration of membrane placed inside the bioreactor doubles the permeability as compared to the external placement. Higher hydraulic performance is achieved at the low membrane-to-disk gap and higher disk rotational speed. The energy analysis shows that the RBC-MI consumes only 0.18 kWhm⁻³ signifying its viability as promission option to the energy-intensive conventional treatment systems.

膜结垢是几乎所有压力驱动膜过滤工艺的主要瓶颈，限制了其广泛应用。改善流体力学条件是控制膜污染最有效的方法之一。本文评估了与膜（RBC-MI）过滤相集成的旋转生物接触器（RBC），该膜有可能提供固有的膜污染控制并增强生物性能，其中将膜置于RBC生物反应器内部。结果表明，RBC-MI系统可实现84％的COD，96.7％的铵，74％的总氮，89％的总磷和96％的浊度去除率。与外部放置相比，放置在生物反应器内部的膜的整合使渗透率增加了一倍。在较小的膜到磁盘间隙和较高的磁盘旋转速度下获得较高的液压性能。能量分析表明，RBC-MI仅消耗0.18 kWhm⁻³表示其可行性是高能耗常规治疗系统的一种选择。