The effect of powdered activated carbon (PAC) addition on the performance of a membrane-coupled anaerobic bioreactor (MCAB) was investigated in terms of membrane filterability and treatabilty through a series of batch and continuous microfiltration (MF) experiments. In both batch and continuous MF of the digestion broth, a flux improvement with PAC addition was achieved, especially when a higher shear rate and/or a higher PAC dose were applied. Both the fouling and cake layer resistances decreased continuously with increasing the PAC dose up to 5 g/L. PAC played an important role in subtantially reducing the biomass cake resistance due to its incompressible nature and higher backtransport velocities. PAC might have a scouring effect for removing the deposited biomass cake from the membrane surface while sorbing and/or coagulating dissolved organics and colloidal particles in the broth. The chemical oxygen demand and color in the effluent were much removed with PAC addition, and the system was also more stable against shock loading.