Membrane bioreactors are known for producing high quality effluent from wastewater treatment facilities in order to meet stringent regulatory requirements (Fleischer et al. 2005), accommodate growth (Vadiveloo & Cisterna 2008), provide opportunities for water reuse (Schmidt et al. 2011), and achieve other operational goals for various municipalities, utilities and industries (Cummings & Frenkel 2008). The process of testing, starting up and optimizing an MBR process for enhanced nutrient removal at the end of a construction project is often overlooked. Even a well-designed MBR can fail to meet expectations if the system is not properly configured during the startup phase, making this a critical step in any successful implementation of membrane technology. The startup phase of two municipal MBR plants were compared to demonstrate the importance of various strategies for initial process optimization, with a focus on lessons learned, techniques and performance expectations that can be applied to future projects.
Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are known for producing high quality effluent from wastewater treatment facilities in order to meet stringent regulatory requirements (Fleischer et al., 2005), accommodate growth (Vadiveloo & Cisterna, 2008), provide opportunities for water reuse (Schmidt et al., 2011), and achieve other operational goals for various municipalities, utilities and industries (Cummings & Frenkel, 2008). The process of testing, starting up and optimizing an MBR process for enhanced nutrient removal at the end of a construction project is often overlooked. Even a well-designed MBR can fail to meet expectations if the system is not properly configured during the startup phase, making this a critical step in any successful implementation of membrane technology. The startup phase of two municipal MBR plants were compared to demonstrate the importance of various strategies for initial process optimization, with a focus on lessons learned, techniques and performance expectations that can be applied to future projects.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.