Feasibility of wastewater resource recovery using pilot-scale membrane reactor with long-term operation

Abstract

With the growing interest in resource recovery from wastewater, research has been put forward to realize this aim using different approaches. Here, we considered several conditions necessary for the experiment, with the primary goal of recovering concentrates suitable for biogas recovery and water reuse through the pilot-scale membrane reactor (PSMR). The new concept enables the feasibility of recovering permeates and concentrates directly from the PSMR. From the results obtained, permeate chemical oxygen demand was within 20 mg/L to 38 mg/L; the total nitrogen yielded an average value of 22.14 ± 3.53 mg/L; ammonia yielded an average value of 13.34 ± 1.18 mg/L; and the total phosphorus presented a value of 0.46 ± 0.32 mg/L. Permeates recovered from the experiment feature potential use for agriculture, groundwater, and lake recharge, as the chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and ammonia contents are low and acceptable for these purposes. Concentrates from two days of solid retention time ranged from 6050 mg/L to 10,000 mg/L, which was suitable for anaerobic digestion for biogas recovery. A further experiment is suggested to enable the removal of more ammonia, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen in permeate to enable its use for a domestic purpose.