The status of industrial and municipal effluent treatment with membrane bioreactor technology

Abstract

The status of MBR technology has been scrutinised with reference to (a) available commercial technologies and their characteristics, (b) key design and performance parameters of existing full-scale installations, and (c) practitioner perception. The key design and operating parameters of flux and COD removal were considered with reference to 100 installations, 40 based on municipal and 60 on industrial wastewater treatment. The perception of practitioners was appraised through a conventional survey, with 186 respondents. A review of the commercial products revealed polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) to be the most prevalent membrane material, accounting for almost half of all products, and provided both in flat sheet (FS) and hollow fibre (HF) configurations. Polyethylsulphone (PES) and polyolefinic membranes (polyethylene, PE and polypropylene, PP) were also found to be available in FS and HF configurations respectively. Almost all products had a nominal membrane pore size between 0.03 and 0.4 µm. Design fluxes in L m-2 h-1 (LMH) for municipal wastewater treatment were predominantly in the 15-25 LMH range, 18.5±4.8 LMH on average, for the average daily flow (ADF), and in the 20-30 LMH range, 26.0±6.6 LMH on average, for peak daily flow (PDF). Fluxes were lower, and dependent on both process configuration and effluent quality, for industrial effluents; the most challenging effluents (landfill leachate) were associated with the lowest fluxes. As expected, treatment capability related roughly to the feedwater BOD/COD ratio, with more than 90% COD removal achieved for food and beverage effluents (for which BOD/COD ratios were largely above 0.5)-comparable with municipal wastewater treatment. Respondents to the survey, around 85% of whom were practitioners, identified pre-treatment (screening) as presenting the greatest technical challenge to MBR operation.

Temporal changes in extracellular polymeric substances on hydrophobic and hydrophilic membrane surfaces in a submerged membrane bioreactor

“…During the acclimation period, the MBR was maintained at a constant permeate flux of 172 10 L/m 2 .h, which is close to the design flux (15-25 L/m 2 .h) for municipal wastewater 173 treatment (Judd, 2015), with a filtration cycle of 9 min followed by 1 min relaxation (no 174 filtration). 175…”

Effect of Membrane Type for the Treatment of Organized Industrial Zone (OIZ) Wastewater with a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR): Batch Experiments

“…Selection of membrane type is a hard task for industrial wastewater, since fouling is one of the most important parameters for long-term operations [8]. In this study, membrane types were investigated according to their resistances to an organized industrial zone (OIZ) wastewater using six different MF and UF membranes in MBR.…”

“…Regardless of the effluent quality of the MBR, it is a good pre-treatment option before a reuse alternative. However, MBR treatment has some technical issues or limitations in operations, and membrane fouling is one of them [8,9].…”

“…The membrane type operated in MBR did not vary widely, since almost 50% of the membranes used in commercial MBR products were polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) from among three membrane configurations; namely, flat sheet (FS), hollowfiber (HF), and multitube (MT) [8]. Polyethersulfone (PES) membranes are the second-most-used membranes, and are used only for FS modules.…”

“…Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are needed for wastewater to conform to regulations that require high-quality effluents in both developed and developing countries [7,8]. Regardless of the effluent quality of the MBR, it is a good pre-treatment option before a reuse alternative.…”