Project Description
Membrane Bioreactor (MBR)
- Description
Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is now widely used for municipal (example. residential wastewater treatment) and industrial wastewater treatment, attributed to MBR process can produce effluent of high quality enough to be discharged to coastal, surface or brackish waterways or to be reclaimed for urban irrigation.
Recent technical innovation and significant membrane cost reduction have enabled MBRs to become an established process option to treat waste water. It it possible to operate MBR process at higher mixed liquor suspended solids concentrations compared to conventional settlement separation systems, thus reducing the reactor volume to achieve the same loading rate.
Other advantage of MBRs over conventional processes include:
- Smaller footprint
- Easy retrofit and upgrade of old wastewater treatment plants
- Superior effluent quality
- Lower lifecycle cost
- Membrane bioreactor process
The MBR process is a suspended growth activated sludge system that utilizes microporous membranes for solid/liquid separation in lieu of secondary clarifiers. The typical arrangement shown in Figure 1 includes submerged membranes in the aerated portion of the bioreactor, an anoxic zone and internal mixed liquor recycle .Incorporation of anaerobic zones for biological phosphorus removal has been the focus of recent research, and there is at least one full scale facility of this type being designed presently in North America. As a further alternative to Figure 1, some plants have used pressure membranes (rather than submerged membranes) external to the bioreactor.
- Practical Case
