Abstract:In nutrient-sensitive estuaries, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are required to implement more advanced treatment methods in order to meet increasingly stringent effluent guidelines for organic matter and nutrients. To comply with current and anticipated water quality regulations and to reduce the volume of produced sludge, we have successfully developed a vertical membrane bioreactor (VMBR) that is composed of anoxic (lower layer) and oxic (upper layer) zones in one reactor. Since 2009, the VMBR has been commercialized (Q = 1100-16,000 m 3 /d) under the trade-name of DMBR TM for recycling of municipal wastewater in South Korea. In this study, we explore the performance and stability of the full-scale systems. As a result, it was found that the DMBR TM systems showed excellent removal efficiencies of organic substances, suspended solids (SS) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Moreover, average removal efficiencies of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus