Operational Factors in Membrane Bioreactors Using a Simple Ceramic Filter

Abstract

To explore the cost reduction of water reclamation and reuse facilities in developing countries, a simple ceramic filter made of local materials, such as clay and rice bran, was used in a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process. The feasibility of applying suction filtration to an MBR with a simple ceramic filter was examined by a laboratory-scale experiment; successful results using gravity filtration were reported in a previous paper. The BOD removal performance was satisfactory and demonstrated the feasibility of reusing effluent water for many purposes. The MBR operation with a flux less than 0.2 m/d showed a lower risk of fouling; increasing the flux caused an increase in fouling risk. The suction filtration and gravity filtration results were compared using the total resistance of the filter (R) and the resistance change rate (dR/dt). The R and dR/dt values were estimated higher in the suction filtration compared to those in the gravity filtration. The high dR/dt seemed to cause the necessity of the filter cleaning. The gravity filtration was suggested to be a more advantageous operation than the suction filtration in MBR using the simple ceramic filter.

Technical and economical viability of a graywater recycling system employing an integrated preliminary settlement and filtration process

“…Previous studies have reported substantial removal (over 93%) of iron, manganese, and phosphorus (Hasan et al 2015) from groundwater because of the effective floc separation performance of the ceramsite filter system. This material was also used in the MBR process to treat wastewater with satisfactory removal performance of different pollutants for instance 97-100% of BOD, 96-100% of COD, 98-100% of TOC, more than 98% of nitrogen and more than 96% of phosphorus (Hasan & Nakajima 2014). These results signify that the light ceramic filter might also offer a simple approach to improve the effluent quality of graywater which has not been reported to date.…”

Performance of an innovative gravity-driven micro-filtration technology for roof rainwater treatment

“…As a new filter material, micro-porous ceramic has lower density and higher specific surface area as compared to conventional micro-filtration membrane media such as cellulose acetate, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), and polyethersulfone (PES) [17]. The ceramic filter has been reported to satisfactorily remove different pollutants in drinking water treatment, i.e., 40-58% for TOC and more than 70% for nitrogen [18,19]. These signify that employing ceramic membrane is very likely to achieve the desired results in rainwater treatment which has not been reported to date.…”