Alginate-Powder Activated Carbon - Quorum Quenching (QQ) bacteria beads for use in a membrane bioreactor to prevent membrane biofouling
Membrane bioreactor (MBR) has been widely accepted as an advanced wastewater treatment technology to meet stringent discharge standards. The global market growth rate is reported to be at 14.7% equating to $1.9 billion currently. However, membrane fouling, which is a combination of pore-blocking and biofilm-growing on the membrane surface has almost 60% of MBR operating cost that is directly related to biofouling. To overcome these issues, we propose a novel QQ microbial immobilisation strategy, which utilises powdered activated carbon for sludge modification and incorporates PAC with the QQ bacteria in alginate-PAC-QQ (APQ beads), for enhanced biofouling control. With the introduction, we can inhibit the formation of biofouling and minimize the OPEX up to 75%.
After going through the LLP journey with interactions of different stakeholders from the market, we validated the pain points of our customers and identified the potential sweet spot for our technology. We also developed the concept of APQ v2, which is a pivotal approach in commercialising this technology.