scholarly journals The Removal of Selected Inorganics from Municipal Membrane Bioreactor Wastewater Using UF/NF/RO Membranes for Water Reuse Application: A Pilot-Scale Study

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.

Membranes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqi Yang ◽  
Mathias Monnot ◽  
Lionel Ercolei ◽  
Philippe Moulin

Wastewater reuse as a sustainable, reliable and energy recovery concept is a promising approach to alleviate worldwide water scarcity. However, the water reuse market needs to be developed with long-term efforts because only less than 4% of the total wastewater worldwide has been treated for water reuse at present. In addition, the reclaimed water should fulfill the criteria of health safety, appearance, environmental acceptance and economic feasibility based on their local water reuse guidelines. Moreover, municipal wastewater as an alternative water resource for non-potable or potable reuse, has been widely treated by various membrane-based treatment processes for reuse applications. By collecting lab-scale and pilot-scale reuse cases as much as possible, this review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the membrane-based treatment processes, mainly focused on the hydraulic filtration performance, contaminants removal capacity, reuse purpose, fouling resistance potential, resource recovery and energy consumption. The advances and limitations of different membrane-based processes alone or coupled with other possible processes such as disinfection processes and advanced oxidation processes, are also highlighted. Challenges still facing membrane-based technologies for water reuse applications, including institutional barriers, financial allocation and public perception, are stated as areas in need of further research and development.


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 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mujahid Aziz ◽  
Tunde Ojumu

In the context of water scarcity, domestic secondary effluent reuse may be an option as a reliable source for alleviating acute water shortage. The increasing risks linked with the presence of natural steroid hormones and many emerging anthropogenic micropollutants (MPs) passing through municipal wastewater treatment works (MWWTWs) are of concern for their endocrine-disrupting activities. In this study, domestic wastewater treated by a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) at an MWWTW in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, was used directly as the influent to a reverse osmosis (RO) pilot plant for the removal of selected natural steroid hormones 17β-estradiol (E2) and testosterone (T) as a potential indirect water recycling application. Estrogenicity and androgenicity were assessed using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and the recombinant yeast estrogen receptor binding assays (YES). The influent pH and flux did not influence the rejection of E2 and T, which was most likely due to adsorption, size exclusion, and diffusion simultaneously. RO and nanofiltration (NF) exhibited excellent removal rates (>95%) for E2 and T. All the E2 effluent samples with MBR/ultrafiltration (UF), MBR/NF, and MBR/RO were lower than the US EPA and WHO trigger value of 0.7 ng/L, as well as the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) values for fish (1 ng E2/L).


2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (9) ◽  
pp. 2014-2019
Author(s):  
Tang Yun-lu ◽  
Liu Dong-fang ◽  
Meng Xian-rong ◽  
Yu Jie ◽  
Wang Jin ◽  
...  

A new method based on rotating biological contactor (RBC) was employed for solving the problems of long hydraulic retention times (HRT) low specific surface area and organic loading rates (OLR) in conventional RBCs. The system showed its particular adsorption ability of microorganisms in the biofilm-attaching period. Microbes on the first cage were observed in comparison with the second one. Packing biodisc also had a good shock load tolerance. It was observed that the system performance improved at higher HRTs, while at the increased level of input OLR, the removal performance worsened slightly. The positive role of rotational speed in the treatment of municipal wastewater was more pronounced in the range of 10–12 rpm. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rate achieved 94% under the optimal operating conditions, which were HRT of 1.5 h, rotational speed of 9.9 rpm. The modified RBC system is highly beneficial to engineering application for better system performance and lower energy consumption.


2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Pollice ◽  
G. Laera ◽  
D. Saturno ◽  
C. Giordano ◽  
R. Sandulli

Membrane bioreactors allow for higher sludge concentrations and improved degradation efficiencies with respect to conventional activated sludge. However, in the current practice these systems are often operated under sub-optimal conditions, since so far no precise indications have yet been issued on the optimal operating conditions of MBR for municipal wastewater treatment. This paper reports some results of four years of operation of a bench scale membrane bioreactor where steady state conditions were investigated under different sludge retention times. The whole experimental campaign was oriented towards the investigation of optimal process conditions in terms of COD removal and nitrification, biomass activity and growth, and sludge characteristics. The membrane bioreactor treated real municipal sewage, and four different sludge ages were tested (20, 40, 60, and 80 days) and compared with previous data on complete sludge retention. The results showed that the the biology of the system, as assessed by the oxygen uptake rate, is less affected than the sludge physical parameters. In particular, although the growth yield was observed to dramatically drop for SRT higher than 80 days, the biological activity was maintained under all the tested conditions. These considerations suggest that high SRT are convenient in terms of limited excess sludge production without losses of the treatment capacity. Physical characteristics such as the viscosity and the filterability appear to be negatively affected by prolonged sludge retention times, but their values remain within the ranges normally reported for conventional activated sludge.


Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. 653
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Azis ◽  
Marianthi Malioka ◽  
Spyridon Ntougias ◽  
Paraschos Melidis

Use of Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) technology for municipal wastewater treatment has been increased in recent years, as it successfully overcomes the disadvantages of the conventional activated sludge process. Membrane fouling is the major disadvantage of MBRs and leads to decreased membrane performance and expanded operational expenses. In this study, fouling was monitored in a pilot-scale submerged MBR system fed with municipal wastewater. TMP was directly measured on the membrane module during the operation. To control TMP increase owing to biosolids accumulation on membrane surface, successive backwashes and air-cross flow velocity increase were applied. These measures lowered TMP and improved flux.


2009 ◽  
Vol 59 (9) ◽  
pp. 1713-1720 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Busch ◽  
W. Marquardt

Membrane micro- and ultrafiltration processes are widespread in water and wastewater treatment applications. Owing to the complex filtration mechanisms and the few available measurement information, they are typically operated using simple control approaches. However, two negative consequences are the sub-optimal performance and the relatively inflexible operation despite dynamic operating conditions. In previous publications, a model-based, adaptive run-to-run control approach for filtration processes has been introduced to improve process performance. It exploits the structure of cyclically operated filtration processes, where one cycle comprises a filtration and a backwashing phase. This contribution focuses on the experimental validation of the approach at a pilot-scale membrane bioreactor for municipal wastewater treatment. Necessary modifications to the approach and details on its implementation are discussed. The controller yields very good results with respect to prediction quality, optimization results, and stability. In addition to improved operational safety, savings of up to 50% are achieved with respect to energy consumption and membrane strain.


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