MBR Effluent with no color ! Possible ?

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I need some suggestion on MBR effluent for reuse potential. The effluent water meets the EPA reuse Standards with turbidity

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30 Answers

  1. The Water Network research team has consolidated an answer to the above question. 
    Further input from members is welcome and appreciated. 

     

    Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is a wastewater treatment process which combines membranes with the biological process.

    The combination of membrane filtration and a suspended growth bioreactor efficiently removes organic and suspended solids.

    The MBR, unlike the conventional activated sludge (CAS) system, doesn’t use a secondary clarifier or a settling tank which would allow the solids to settle and separate them from the liquid. Instead, membranes are used for this purpose. This results in much better water quality.

    MBRs produce high quality effluent – the water, after being treated in the MBR is of extremely high quality since all the biomatter, solids and microorganisms are filtered. The effluent is directly reusable or recyclable and can be release in the environment.

    MBRs can treat up to 48 million liters of wastewater per day.

     

    Color from natural organic matter:

    Natural organic matter (NOM) colors the water. Though the effluent water might meet the standards, it is aesthetically unappealing so industries are trying to remove the water color.

    NOM is a range of materials (from catchments in surface and ground water to organic materials from domestic, industrial or agricultural sources) and differs depending on the season.  

     

    • Ultrafiltration (UF) or microfiltration (MF) membrane could be added along with your MRB technology. Small holes (micron order o-f magnitude) in the membrane will block the pigment to go through with the effluent. This membrane will also block microorganisms, inorganic matter and most organics. 
      However, adding such a membrane will add to treatment costs and the membrane needs to be maintained clean.
      Special attention needs to be paid to fouling. Fouling is expected to increase when raw water temperatures increase. Chlorination as a pretreatment could reduce fouling.
    • As an alternative to membranes, since organic carbon can represent 50% of NOM, to remove the color, the dissolved organic carbon compounds (DOC) need to be chemically treated to be transformed into particulate material and removed by coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, flotation.
      Coagulation using metal salts removes 30-60% of NOM.
    • Adsorbents such as activated carbon can also be used to remove dye.
    • Oxidation will cause chemical decolorization and very efficient. There is a range of oxidants that can be used for removing the natural water color.

     

    Color in effluent wastewater from industries:

    If color originates from textile, paper and pulp, dye, tannery or pharmaceutical industries, the color is more difficult to remove.

    Color originates from phenolic compounds (tannins, lignins) and organic colourants.

    The following methods, including some inexpensive materials, can be used to remove dye from water:

    • Inexpensive materials:

                           o Bagasse pith – an affordable adsorbent. Bagasse is a byproduct in sugarcane mills. It adsorbs dyes from water.

                           o Peat – an adsorbent for polar organic compounds from dye. It is affordable and doesn’t need to be activated in any way.

                           o Wood chips – adsorbs dyes and color-causing polar organics but it is hard and requires longer contact time.

    • Irradiation or Photocatalysis – gamma rays or electron beams or UV light can eliminate a wide range of organic matter from water and get rid of microorganisms. They can be used along with catalysts.
    • Oxidation – efficient chemical decolorization. However please note that, oxidation used for biological treatment is not sufficient for removing colors in water from industries and more powerful oxidants (chlorines, ozone, Fenton’s reagents, UV/peroxide, UV/ozone) should be used. 
    • Coagulation and precipitation – coagulation is achieved by metal salts of iron and aluminium and the aggregates are then left to settle in a short detention time.
    • Biological methods – microorganisms do not use colors as food so colors are not biodegradable. However, using anaerobic microorganisms in an anaerobic step followed by an aerobic step can remove industrial colors from water. Funghi and algae can also very efficiently remove industrial colors.
    • Membranes – UF and MF.

     

    Sources:

    · Colour Removal Without Chemical Addition Using Nanofiltration 

    · https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227331233_Decolourization_of_Industrial_Effluents_-_Available_Methods_and_Emerging_Technologies_-_A_Review

     

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  4. I suppose with no colour is a very vague statement. The turbidty and TSS generated are definitely much lower than normal treatment. More detials on the quality of water will be better for analysis. I only can think it is possible only after some settling time. Hope this helps. Regards, Shawn Seah

  6. Paul Jacob: I think that you travel the wrong road. All the ALIVE one on ground is programmed as of the end of its existence to bedestroyed/transformed to make reappear the ALIVE one. Thus nature closes the loop of the LIFE, that it is, the vegetalized organic matter that of human origin animal or the third which is food. This destruction/transformation devinet a fertilizer for the topsoil and all the vegetalized biodiversity. The waste waters contain diffuse pollution that nobody nor no device some it is are not in measurement to eliminate it. There will remain always natural chemical molecules which will be fixed in blood and will be factors of epidemics of disease of handicap. To divert a natural functionas simple as the rain is to carry reached to a écosystem some share on ground.

  7. Hi I inject ozone venturi or a special measuring, decant the particles in suspension and organically disinfect the water, if you give me more details of the deal you tell m3 dose exacta.A we work

  8. I think that best approach is using oxidation process. Any way test it. We have had some promises of some suppliers in removing colours using membranes and oxidation process that did nork in field. Be careful because colour is a challenge. Reasons were already discussed in this forum

  9. with MBR, anything can happen. Your requirement is just very stringent and its very costly. You will have to use a smaller membrane(say 0.2micron) where a pigment can be prevented to go with the effluent. In this case, your overhead /vertical height of the MBR tanks must be very high (maybe 10 times) as the height holds a bigger body of water that pushed the liquor to the membrane. I say again Mr Jacob that its very costly. At 0.2micron, any micro organisms are prevented, inorganic matters and most of the organics.

  10. MBR Effluent with no color ! Possible ?

    1.Any adsorption column is the answer. Activated carbon is the most commonly used one. 

    2. Or else you may consider chlorination or any other oxidising agent.

    Both will add to the cost. 

  11. Dear Pual, As described above, Oxidation Process is one of the option i.e. Hydrogen Per Oxide H2O2 and for that you need have a basin and a proper contact time. What I feel Ozone has very strong tendency to remove color along with disinfection. Depending upon the flow rate, you can contact any of the Ozonator Supplier for economical supply. But please keep in mind, nothing is free. You have to spend some on continuous basis. All you need to search for a good economical supplier for your color removal and disinfection.

  12. Suggest lab testing in beakers using various commercially available oxidants, Hydrogen Peroxide, Sodium Hypochlorite, Potassium Permanganate solutions to establish which works best (least colour at lowest dose & lowest cost) then another trial to optimise dose. Alternatively, if the colour is due to coffee grounds, ensure these entering the system are kept to a minimum and in lieu of oxidants, trial various polyacrylomide polymers (cationic, anionic, nonionic, and the variety of low, medium and high molecular weights).

  13. Photochemical AOP polishing

    Hi Paul,

    Coffee has hundreds of organic chemicals in it - oils, tannins, acids, caffeine, etc. which are low molecular weight and need to be broken apart rather than filtered or separated further by membranes.  We have an LED activated nanotechnology that creates photochemical AOP reactions at the surface of the nanotechnology which will kill the remaining coliform, eliminate the color and COD and lower the pH to 7, and have systems sized for coffee shops.

  14. MBR Colour

    In my experience MBR's generate colour, particularly in a reuse application with recycling.  If you are meeting a reuse water quality then you have to disinfect.  The colour will likely interfere with UV, but chlorination can be carried out to both disinfect and will take care of the colour.  With respect to your cost concern, chlorination is likely your least expensive option and the dosage required to meet your CT requirement will address the colour problem.

  15. Walter Schultz CEO HTI

    Hi Paul,

    HTI offers an unique OsMBR process, where we place Forward Osmosis membranes into submerged MBR and then use Reverse Osmosis to re-concentrate a NaCl FO draw solution in the closed loop system. The result is RO quality permeate that should exceed all of your requirements for color and quality. Because the FO membrane is a tight membrane, it completely isolates the RO system from the traditional fouling challenges encountered when RO is applied to an MBR . In case of OsMBR the final permeate has typically passed through three tight membrane passes assuring a very high quality product.

  16. the key is it has to be cheap

    have you tried chlorine?

    Answered on by

  18. Possible Fix to effluent color

    How are they disposing of the coffee grounds?  Hopefully not in the drain, but if so, the main contributor to the color may be coming from tannins associated with the coffee waste.  The simplest, proactive fix (if this is what they are doing) is not to dispose the grounds in the drain.  A reactive approach would be to try electrocoagulation as a means to remove the color as a polisher to existing treatment train.  The EC will also give a 3-5 log pathogen removal.  You can couple this with a Fentons reaction to break up short chain carbons if the EC does not work alone.  Typically EC by itself has difficulty removing carbon chains

  19. The effluent seems to reach an acceptable quality but with intense colour, I would suggest installing a polishing treatment (such as a UF membrane), but as mentioned above, try a variation in the pH and let´s see the final result.

  20. MBR effluent with no color

    Dear Paul, my name is Jens Potreck and I am working at Pentair X-Flow, a membrane manufactur for capillary and tubular membranes.

    We have a solution for your problem, it is still on R&D scale, but we could do a experimental analysis on it together. We developed a capillary and tubular membrane, which can remove colour (organic compounds) from water. So either we could do a polishing step with our capillary color removal membrane, which is already commerically available, or we can try to use the tubular ones directly.

    You can contact me at jens.potreck@pentair.com

    Greetings Jens

  21. The color can be detected by the consumer that if increased about 15 units a real color True Colour Units TCU and produces the color in the water due to the melting of organic materials such as Fulvic acids and Alheiomk melting metals such as iron, which causes the brown color of the water.

  22. Hi Paul is your MBR a membrane bio reactor or a multiple step bioreactor. when it is the second choice use a tight ultrafiltration membrane which you operate with ambient pressure. The flow you can can expect is about 10 l/h m2 membrane. If it is the first the easiest is to use active carbon or a simple filtration through earth material like the nature does it. Then you need an additional filtration device.

  24. suggestion on MBR effluent for reuse potential

    Besides chlorination of the finished water which is likley to help with the color, another consideration is to decrease the pH of the water to around 6 or increase it to around 8.6 at which pH color-casuing compounds of various origin may precipitate or dissolve - try it in beakers first to see if pH adjustment will help with the color removal.

  27. The effluent of which you speak is the representation of the liquid element of waste waters of a normal habitat. The color brown clearly shows that it contains corresponds to the diffuse pollution of waste waters. A part comes from the dissolved fecal matter by the micro organizations, a part comes from the urine (Urea, ammonia, nitrogenize, nitrate, mug up, phophate and other chemical components). Micro materials. For that he is necessary to add water to it (rinsing of the toilets, lava hands) and the water of the bar (sink, washing of glasses of the small Dishes) it is necessary to add to it the water of flow of the various devices (fridge, coffee machine, cooling agent, refrigerator). Dirty water coming from the cleaning of the ground and surface medical. Micro pollutant chemical what gives for this effluent a toxic concentration is very important: With not using so that it is. DANGER

  29. You can use adsorbent such as al2o3 or anything else. It is chepaer than activated carbon, and provide high performance for color reduction.