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khastoo H, hassani A H, Mafigholami R, mahmoudkhani R. Evaluating the Optimal Operating Conditions of MBR for Domestic Wastewater Treatment. J Environ Health Eng 2021; 8 (2) :212-223
URL: http://jehe.abzums.ac.ir/article-1-838-en.html

Objective: Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is known as new technology for domestic wastewater treatment. This research aims on the performance evaluation of MBR in pollutants removal and membrane fouling in different operational conditions.
Materials and methods: For this purpose, a pilot with 140 L net volume and flat-sheet membrane was started up and continuously fed with real wastewater in Ekbatan wastewater treatment plant. It has been operated for 100 days with different organic loading rates (OLR) of 0.58, 0.71 and 1.55 kgCOD/m³.d and aeration conditions of DO>4 mg/L and DO<1.5 mg/L.
Results: The results show that MBR can remove more than 96% of BOD, COD and TSS of wastewater in all operating conditions. This performance is rather constant and verifies the high reliability of system in different operating conditions. Nevertheless, the maximum removal efficiency of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP) is 31% and 66%, respectively, while it degrades about 15% in aerated condition (DO>4 mg/L). In addition, membrane fouling increases whenever OLR is increased or the aeration is reduced. Actually, the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) is statistically correlated with OLR (R²=0.91).
Conclusion: The findings reveal that MBR is an efficient technology for domestic wastewater treatment and performs rather constant in times of aeration reduction or OLR enhancement. However, it requires supplementary techniques for TN and TP removal.