Membrane bioreactor technology includes the integration of biological wastewater treatment and physical separation by membrane filtration. When analyzing the system performance, efficiency of biological processes, physical separation and membrane fouling must be taken into consideration. Over the years, mathematical modelling of wastewater treatment has evolved and is being used extensively to optimize the performance of treatment systems. A Number of attempts have been made towards the development of mathematical models for membrane bioreactors and most of these models have not considered the effect of soluble microbial products on membrane fouling. Also the effect of periodic membrane cleaning was neglected. In this study, an integrated mathematical model was developed for the membrane bioreactor. A biological model based on activated sludge processes (extended with biopolymer kinetics) and a physical model with cake layer kinetics and membrane fouling have been combined. In order to overcome the drawbacks of previous attempts of modelling, the influence of soluble microbial products and extracellular polymeric substances are considered in the model integration. Further, the physical processes of the sludge removal and membrane cleaning which have strong influence on membrane fouling are considered in the model. “AQUASIM”, a computer program for the identification and simulation of aquatic systems, was used for solving the processes. Calibrated and validated model enables the prediction of the system performance and membrane fouling under different operating conditions.

膜生物反应器技术包括生物废水处理和膜过滤物理分离的集成。在分析系统性能时，必须考虑生物过程的效率、物理分离和膜污染。多年来，废水处理的数学模型不断发展，并被广泛用于优化处理系统的性能。已经为开发膜生物反应器的数学模型进行了许多尝试，但这些模型中的大多数都没有考虑可溶性微生物产物对膜污染的影响。定期膜清洗的影响也被忽略了。在这项研究中，为膜生物反应器开发了一个集成的数学模型。基于活性污泥过程的生物模型（扩展了生物聚合物动力学）和具有滤饼层动力学和膜污染的物理模型已经结合。为了克服以往建模尝试的缺陷，在模型整合中考虑了可溶性微生物产物和细胞外聚合物的影响。此外，模型中还考虑了对膜污染影响较大的污泥去除和膜清洗的物理过程。“AQUASIM”是一种用于识别和模拟水生系统的计算机程序，用于解决这些过程。校准和验证的模型能够预测不同操作条件下的系统性能和膜污染。