Modification of submerged membrane bioreactors (MBRs) by inserting baffles: pilot scale study

2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (7) ◽  
pp. 119-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kimura ◽  
M. Enomoto ◽  
Y. Watanabe

Submerged membrane bioreactors (MBRs) have been gaining in popularity in various types of wastewater treatment. One drawback of submerged MBRs is difficulty in removing nitrogen as they are accompanied with intensive aeration inside the reactor and therefore principally operated under aerobic conditions. In order to address this problem, a simple modification for submerged MBRs, insertion of baffles to create alternative aerobic/anoxic conditions, was proposed. In this study, the performance of the proposed baffled membrane bioreactor (BMBR) was investigated based on a pilot-scale experiment using a real municipal wastewater. With appropriate operating conditions, the BMBR could remove more than 70% of total nitrogen contained in the feed water without any external carbon source. The BMBR demonstrated a good treatment performance in terms of TOC and phosphorus removal as well. Increase of trans-membrane pressure difference was subtle, which might be attributed to the alternative creation of aerobic/anoxic conditions.

Membranes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mujahid Aziz ◽  
Godwill Kasongo

Membrane technology has advanced substantially as a preferred choice for the exclusion of widespread pollutants for reclaiming water from various treatment effluent. Currently, little information is available about Ultrafiltration (UF)/Nanofiltration (NF)/Reverse Osmosis (RO) performance at a pilot scale as a practical engineering application. In this study, the effluent from a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) municipal wastewater treatment works (MWWTWs) was treated with an RO pilot plant. The aim was to evaluate the effect of operating conditions in the removal of selected inorganics as a potential indirect water reuse application. The influent pH, flux, and membrane recovery were the operating conditions varied to measure its influence on the rejection rate. MBR/RO exhibited excellent removal rates (>90%) for all selected inorganics and met the standard requirements for reuse in cooling and irrigation system applications. The UF and NF reduction of inorganics was shown to be limited to meet water standards for some of the reuse applications due to the high Electron Conductivity (EC > 250 μS·cm−1) levels. The MBR/NF was irrigation and cooling system compliant, while for the MBR/UF, only the cooling system was compliant.


2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (6) ◽  
pp. 844-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taro Miyoshi ◽  
Yuhei Nagai ◽  
Tomoyasu Aizawa ◽  
Katsuki Kimura ◽  
Yoshimasa Watanabe

In this study, the details of proteins causing membrane fouling in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) treating real municipal wastewater were investigated. Two separate pilot-scale MBRs were continuously operated under significantly different operating conditions; one MBR was a submerged type whereas the other was a side-stream type. The submerged and side-stream MBRs were operated for 20 and 10 days, respectively. At the end of continuous operation, the foulants were extracted from the fouled membranes. The proteins contained in the extracted foulants were enriched by using the combination of crude concentration with an ultrafiltration membrane and trichloroacetic acid precipitation, and then separated by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE). The N-terminal amino acid sequencing analysis of the proteins which formed intensive spots on the 2D-PAGE gels allowed us to partially identify one protein (OmpA family protein originated from genus Brevundimonas or Riemerella anatipestifer) from the foulant obtained from the submerged MBR, and two proteins (OprD and OprF originated from genus Pseudomonas) from that obtained from the side-stream MBR. Despite the significant difference in operating conditions of the two MBRs, all proteins identified in this study belong to β-barrel protein. These findings strongly suggest the importance of β-barrel proteins in developing membrane fouling in MBRs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (12) ◽  
pp. 2803-2811 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Miyoshi ◽  
T. Tsumuraya ◽  
T. P. Nguyen ◽  
K. Kimura ◽  
Y. Watanabe

Abstract In this study, we investigated the effects of recirculation and separation times on removals of organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus in a baffled membrane bioreactor (B-MBR) treating real municipal wastewater. A pilot-scale B-MBR experimental apparatus was operated under two different sets of recirculation and separation times. The results revealed that, irrespective of operating conditions, the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and concentration of total nitrogen (T-N) in the treated water can be lowered to less than 3 and 5 mg/L, respectively. Although T-N was effectively removed in the two different operating conditions, increase in the fraction of recirculation time results in tiny deterioration of nitrogen removal efficiency in the B-MBR. Phosphorus removal efficiency was also slightly decreased as the fraction of recirculation time (ratio between recirculation and separation times) was increased. The results of the measurement of dissolved oxygen (DO) profiles at different points of the B-MBR apparatus indicate that the increase in DO concentration in the anoxic zone of the B-MBR becomes much more pronounced by increasing recirculation intensity. On the basis of the results obtained in this study, it can be concluded that efficient removal of BOD, T-N, and total phosphorus can be achieved by the B-MBR as long as appropriate recirculation intensity is selected.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 253-259
Author(s):  
C. Blöcher ◽  
T. Britz ◽  
H.D. Janke ◽  
H. Chmiel

The application of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) was investigated to treat polluted process water from fruit juice processing. The aim was either direct discharge or further treatment by nanofiltration/low pressure reverse osmosis to produce water of drinking quality. The results of a one-year test operation of the process in industrial scale at a fruit juice production plant are presented. Focus was centred on the influence of activated sludge characteristics on membrane performance. Under the operating conditions in place, neither solids content, particle size distribution nor addition of nutrient significantly affected the permeate flux which was considerably lower than expected (based on municipal wastewater treatment with MBRs). Instead, evidence was obtained that the insufficient permeate flux was most likely due to the high content of extracellular polymeric substances. However, it was impossible to relate in detail the substantial flux variations during the test run to AS characteristics or changes in microbial population.


2010 ◽  
Vol 61 (9) ◽  
pp. 2259-2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Styliani Kantartzi ◽  
Paraschos Melidis ◽  
Alexander Aivasidis

In the present study, a laboratory scale system, consisting of a primary settling tank, a continuous stirred tank reactor and a clarifier were constructed and operated, using wastewater from the municipal wastewater treatment plant in Xanthi, Greece. The system operated under intermittent aeration in aerobic/anoxic conditions and feeding of the wastewater once in every cycle. The unit was inoculated with sludge, which originated from the recirculation stream of the local wastewater treatment plant. The wastewater was processed with hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 12 h, in which various experimental states were studied regarding the combination of aerobic and anoxic intervals. The wastewater was fed in limited time once in every cycle of aerobic/anoxic conditions at the beginning of the anoxic period. The two states that exhibited highest performance in nitrification and total nitrogen removal were, then, repeated with HRT of 10 h. The results show that, regarding the nitrification stage and the organic load removal, the intermittent system achieved optimum efficiency, with an overall removal of biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and ammonium nitrogen in the range of 93–96% and 91–95% respectively. As far as the total nitrogen removal is concerned, and if the stage of the denitrification is taken into account, the performance of the intermittent system surpassed other methods, as it is shown by the total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) removal efficiency of 85–87%. These operating conditions suppressed the growth of filamentous organisms, a fact reflected at the SVI values, which were lower than 150 ml/g.


2012 ◽  
Vol 599 ◽  
pp. 387-390
Author(s):  
Xing Yu Bian ◽  
Xing Sheng Kang ◽  
Yi Li ◽  
Yu Lin Sun ◽  
Min Kong ◽  
...  

In this paper, chemical and biological flocculation and suspended medium process was applied to treat low concentration municipal wastewater in a pilot scale test in order to find the optimum operational parameter. The results showed that: system on pollutant removal mainly on chemical and biological flocculation reaction pool, Under the optimal operating condition, CODCr, TP and SS removal efficiencies reached 75.5%, 76%and 90.5% respectively, and the CODCr, TP, SS concentrations of effluent meet the National Wastewater Integrated Discharge Standard. The optimum operating conditions according to the local actual situation, running for more than half a year, for the optimization of control parameters for the contrast obtained.


2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (11) ◽  
pp. 2602-2607 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kimura ◽  
R. Ogyu ◽  
T. Miyoshi ◽  
T. Naruse ◽  
T. Tsuyuhara ◽  
...  

Membrane fouling needs to be mitigated for widespread use of membrane bioreactors (MBRs). It has been pointed out that particles with small sizes found in supernatants (sub-micron particles) of mixed liquor suspensions of MBRs are important in the evolution of membrane fouling of this technology. However, information on characteristics of sub-micron particles in MBRs is still insufficient. In this study, a pilot-scale MBR treating municipal wastewater was used to investigate and characterize sub-micron particles in an MBR and to identify the size fraction(s) responsible for irreversible fouling in an MBR. It was clearly shown that characteristics of sub-micron particles in the MBR varied considerably depending on their sizes. Results of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis and monosaccharide analysis suggested that irreversible fouling in this study was mainly caused by the specific size fraction of 0.1–0.45 μm, which was close to the size of micropores of the membrane used. Pore plugging might explain this to some extent.


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