Performance and fate of organics in a pilot MBR–NF for treating antibiotic production wastewater with recycling NF concentrate

Abstract

h i g h l i g h t sMBR-NF with NF concentrate recycling was tested for antibiotic-wastewater treatment. The system was effective for antibiotic production wastewater treatment and reuse. The MBR-NF process resulted in excellent water quality and a high water yield of 92%. Organic pollutants in the wastewater were almost completely retained by the NF. a r t i c l e i n f o b s t r a c tA double membrane system comprising a membrane bioreactor (MBR) combined with a nanofiltration (NF) membrane was investigated on a pilot scale for the treatment of antibiotic production wastewater over a three-month period at a pharmaceutical company in Wuxi, China. By recycling the NF concentrate, the combined MBR-NF process was shown to be effective for the treatment of antibiotic production wastewater, resulting in excellent water quality and a high water yield of 92 ± 5.6%. The water quality of the pilot-scale MBR-NF process was excellent; e.g., the concentrations of TOC, NH 4 + -N, TP were stable at 5.52, 0.68, 0.34 mg L À1 , respectively, and the values of turbidity and conductivity of the NF permeate were 0.15 NTU and 2.5 mS cm À1 , respectively; these values meet China's water quality standard requirements for industrial use (GB21903-2008). Not only were the antibiotic removal rates of spiramycin (SPM) and new spiramycin (NSPM) over 95%, the acute toxicity was also drastically reduced by the MBR-NF pilot system. The main organics in the MBR effluent were proteins, polysaccharides, and humic-like substances; they were almost completely retained by the NF membrane and further biodegraded in the MBR because the NF concentrate was recycled. The microbial community of the MBR did not significantly change with the recycling of the NF concentrate.

Effects of returning NF concentrate on the MBR-NF process treating antibiotic production wastewater

“…However, VRF had little impact on NF permeate with TOC stable at approximately 2 mg/L. These results suggested that the steady performance of NF guarantees the removal efficiency of organic matters by the MBR-NF process with the backflow of NF concentrate, which is in good agreement with results reported in other literatures (Kappel et al 2014;Wang et al 2015;Wang et al 2014). The MW distribution of organic matters at VRF = 5 in the MBR-NF process is shown in Fig.…”

“…Nevertheless, the effect of NF concentrate at diffident backflow ratios (R cb s) remains unclear while the suitable VRF for NF concentrate also needs some attention. In addition, few studies (Wang et al 2015;Wang et al 2014) were reported working on the advanced treatment and reclamation of the real antibiotic production wastewater by the MBR-NF process. Further research on the parameter optimization and mechanism study for the application of the MBR-NF process in antibiotic production wastewater treatment are imperatively needed.…”

Membrane Fouling Characteristics of a Side-Stream Tubular Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (AnMBR) Treating Domestic Wastewater

“…The Figure S2a, the peak at 2500-3700 cm −1 is suggested to represent the stretching of the O−H bond [54] and 1413 cm −1 (C−N stretch) may indicate the secondary and tertiary amines. Figure S2b spectra exhibits absorption band around 1052 cm −1 , which can be assigned to the C−O stretching of polysaccharides or polysaccharide-like substances [55] and 1157 cm −1 band suggested to be assigned to C−O bond of ethers or carboxylic acid [53]. Figure S2b also showed three groups of bands near 1762, 1652, and 1578 cm −1 [56] in fouling layer after NaOH, NaOCl and citric acid cleaning.…”

Advanced treatment of municipal wastewater by nanofiltration: Operational optimization and membrane fouling analysis

“…were detected in the range of 1350-1260 and 1075-1000 cm −1 , respectively, which were derived from the polysaccharide-like substances (Chon et al, 2012a(Chon et al, , 2012bWang et al, 2015). The O-H stretching and C-H stretching that occurred in the range of 3500-3300 and 3000-2800 cm −1 were related to proteins, humic acids and polysaccharides, and it was difficult to distinguish the derivation of these functional groups based on IR analysis.…”