A practitioner’s perspective on the application and research needs of membrane bioreactors for municipal wastewater treatment

Kraemer, Jeremy; Menniti, Adrienne; Erdal, Zeynep; Constantine, T. A.; Johnson, Bruce R.; Crawford, George

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2012.05.014

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…MBRs can however fail to process the desired volume of wastewater if extreme caking, fouling or low biomass filterability occurs (Judd and Judd, 2011a,b). Additionally due to the necessity of constant membrane agitation, and chemical cleaning for removal of fouling, the capital and operational costs of ownership of MBRs is higher than for CAS processes (Le-Clech, 2010;Kraemer et al, 2012;Li et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although an aerobic MBR contains an activated sludge process, effluent suspended solids issues are mitigated by membrane separation. MBRs are an established technology now approaching maturity with 'fifth generation' plants currently being built (Kraemer et al, 2012). MBRs can however fail to process the desired volume of wastewater if extreme caking, fouling or low biomass filterability occurs (Judd and Judd, 2011a,b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A review of practical tools for rapid monitoring of membrane bioreactors

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The production of high quality effluent from membrane bioreactors (MBRs) arguably requires less supervision than conventional activated sludge (CAS) processes. Nevertheless, the use of membranes brings additional issues of activated sludge filterability, cake layer formation and membrane fouling. From a practical standpoint, process engineers and operators require simple tools which offer timely information about the biological health and filterability of the mixed liquor as well as risks of membrane fouling. To this end, a range of analytical tools and biological assays are critically reviewed from this perspective. This review recommends that Capillary Suction Time (CST) analysis along with Total Suspended and Volatile Solids (TSS/VSS) analysis is used daily. For broad characterisation, total carbon and nitrogen analysis offer significant advantages over the commonly used chemical and biological oxygen demand (COD/BOD) analyses. Of the technologies for determining the vitality of the microbial biomass the most robust and reproducible, are the second generation adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) test kits. Extracellular polymer concentrations are best monitored by measurement of turbidity after centrifugation. Taken collectively these tools can be used routinely to ensure timely intervention and smoother operation of MBR systems.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of practical tools for rapid monitoring of membrane bioreactors

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…MBRs are now an established and accepted technology with higher reliability for municipal wastewater treatment for higher quality effluents production [10]. The pilot-scale experimental results demonstrated that MBR can be used for dual purposes, namely as biological secondary/tertiary treatments as well as pre-treatment for RO during as MBR/RO integration gave excellent quality product water during water recovery [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Though MBR proven mature technology for municipal wastewater reclamation [10], so far few studies are conducted the studies about the comparison of this technology with other low membrane filtration (MF/ UF) and conventional pre-treatment technologies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of reverse osmosis (RO) for water recovery from permeates of membrane bio-reactor (MBR)

Pandey

Jegatheesan

Baskaran

et al. 2014

Desalination and Water Treatment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, permeate from a hollow fiber polyethylene (PE) membrane bio-reactor (MBR) system treating synthetic agricultural wastewater was fed into a cellulose acetate brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO30 2540) membrane system; three different trans-membranes pressures (TMPs) of 1000, 2500, and 4000 kPa were selected to evaluate the system performance in terms of general operating parameters as well as the removal of chosen important potential fouling water quality parameters. The results showed that highest corrected permeate flux rate was at a TMP of 2500 kPa, whereas lowest recorded at a TMP of 4000 kPa. Similar situation prevailed in water recovery rate. But temperature corrected specific fluxes decreased as the applied TMPs increased. In all selected TMPs, more than 96% of salinity was removed. Permeate from MBR as feed to reverse osmosis required frequent chemical cleaning than the microfiltration/ultrafiltration (MF/UF) permeates and granular media filter (GMF) filtered in order to maintain the required rate of product water. One of the reasons for this frequent chemical cleaning is due to higher total organic carbon as well as total nitrogen (TN) in the MBR permeate. This result needs to be further evaluated through field trials.

show abstract

“…This can readily be extended to the whole plant, to provide a completely automated system suited for decentralized or satellite treatment facilities (Kraemer et al 2012) and to apply for sewage (Sartor et al 2008) or grey water treatment (Jaboring 2014)in sites without a sewer system. Membrane bioreactors (MBR) are very efficient for pathogenicity removal and capable of meeting other parameters for irrigation water quality such as heavy metals (Arévalo et al 2013, Norton-Brandão et al 2013 or endocrine disruptor compounds and pharmaceuticals (Le Minh et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost-effectiveness analysis of sewer mining versus centralized wastewater treatment: Case study of the Arga river basin, Spain

González-Viar

Díez-Montero

Molinos-Senante

et al. 2015

Urban Water Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the context of the EU Water Framework Directive, a Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) was performed to compare centralized and decentralized wastewater treatment strategies aimed to improve the ecological status of a Spanish river. The implementation of several hybrid membrane bioreactors within the urban framework for sewer mining (SM) was compared with the more common wastewater treatment plant enlargement option. The assessment ranked 6 alternatives based on 12 potential scenarios, aimed at narrowing the uncertainty of the CEA. The cost analysis illustrated that SM is the most expensive option regarding both investment and operation and maintenance costs. However, the effectiveness of the alternatives evaluated depends significantly on the scenarios considered, being SM the most effective in most cases. Finally, the costeffectiveness ratio showed SM as the best cost-effective alternative. CEA provides an ecological-economic indicator useful to prioritize wastewater treatment alternatives to achieve a given objective.

show abstract

A practitioner’s perspective on the application and research needs of membrane bioreactors for municipal wastewater treatment

Cited by 27 publications

References 26 publications

A review of practical tools for rapid monitoring of membrane bioreactors

A review of practical tools for rapid monitoring of membrane bioreactors

Performance of reverse osmosis (RO) for water recovery from permeates of membrane bio-reactor (MBR)

Cost-effectiveness analysis of sewer mining versus centralized wastewater treatment: Case study of the Arga river basin, Spain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About