🌍💼 Can Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) and hybrid treatments remove micropollutants from wastewater effectively? 📉🌍MBR (Membrane Bioreacto...
Published on by Hossein Ataei Far, Deputy Manager of the Research, Technology Development, and Industry Relations Center at NWWEC
🌍MBR (Membrane Bioreactor) and hybrid treatment (including adding PAC to the activated sludge and coupling PAC-assisted MBR with RO) approaches have shown promise in removing micropollutants from wastewater. Let's explore their effectiveness in more detail:
🔎MBR-Based Treatment:
▶️MBRs have proven to be cost-effective in clearing various micropollutants from wastewater.
▶️MBRs operate with a long solids retention time (SRT), promoting microbial culture diversification and potentially enhancing micropollutant removal.
▶️The study specifically investigates the removal of five micropollutants (acetaminophen, amoxicillin, atrazine, estrone, and triclosan) using a recirculating
▶️MBR system with an anoxic tank, an aerobic tank, and a separate membrane filtration unit.
▶️The MBR is efficient in removing four out of the five compounds, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Atrazine shows low removal and operation time is critical for estrone removal.
▶️MBRs are increasingly used for municipal wastewater treatment and have shown high potential for removing pharmaceutical micropollutants, with reported removal efficiencies of over 95% for chemical oxygen demand (COD) and specific organic micropollutants.
▶️Despite advantages, membrane fouling poses a significant challenge to MBR systems, necessitating a focus on energy reduction, membrane contamination prevention, and integrated MBR system development.
🔎 Hybrid Treatment Approaches:
▶️Hybrid approaches combine MBR technology with other methods to enhance micropollutant removal.
▶️One common approach is adding powdered activated carbon (PAC) to the activated sludge process, leveraging PAC's adsorptive properties.
▶️Another hybrid approach involves coupling PAC-assisted MBR with reverse osmosis (RO) for further purification. PAC adsorbs micropollutants in the MBR, and RO provides highly efficient membrane filtration.
▶️Both MBR-based treatment and hybrid approaches have demonstrated effectiveness in removing micropollutants from wastewater.
▶️MBRs offer a robust and cost-effective treatment option, while hybrid approaches provide additional benefits by combining MBR technology with adsorption or advanced membrane processes.
🌍The PAC MBR RO approach is designed to efficiently remove micropollutants.
▶️PAC adsorbs micropollutants, MBR biodegrades organic matter and removes solids, and the RO membrane further removes dissolved contaminants, resulting in high-quality treated water.
🔗 References:
[1] Kamaz, M., et al., (2019).
[2] Mert, B. K et al., (2018).
[3] Pathak, N., et al., (2020).
[4] Silva, L. L., et al., (2017).
[5] Gunalan, S., et al., (2018).
#Micropollutants
#PowderedActivatedCarbon
#MembraneBioreactor
#ReverseOsmosis
#WastewaterTreatmentPlants
📢 If you found this post valuable, don't hesitate to hit the like 👍 button.