Industrial MBRs − an introduction
Industrial MBRs − an introduction
Membrane bioreactors have been applied to treat effluent in a number of industrial sectors, including among others:
- food and beverage − typically high in organic loading
- petroleum industry − sectors relating to exploration, refining and petrochemical
- pharmaceutical industry − with its challenges of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)
- pulp and paper industry − typically high levels of suspended solids, COD and BOD
- textile industry effluent − with differing challenges re biodegradability, toxicity, FOG content and colour
- landfill leachate − containing a wide variety of dissolved and suspended organic and inorganic compounds
- ship effluents − bound by legislative requirements and space restrictions.
Industrial versus municipal treatment
There is no significant difference in the design of the MBR technology for a process treating industrial rather than municipal wastewater. The key differences between the two applications are that, for industrial effluents, there are:
- higher concentrations of organic matter, which also tend to be more biorefractory (i.e. less biodegradable) than in municipal effluent,
- more temporal variation in the concentrations of pollutants, both seasonally and diurnally (i.e. across a daily cycle) than for municipal effluent,
- very significant variations across the different industrial sectors, with the least biorefactory effluents from the food and beverage industry and the most biorefactory from landfill leachate applications,
- no requirement for the removal of pathogenic micro-organisms, unless the effluent is combined with a sewage stream. The significant variations in concentration usually demand equalisation of 8−24 hours to ensure that the biological process is not exposed to shock loads or organic matter. Pretreatment may also be necessary if the feed water contains significant amounts of free oil, which might otherwise irreversibly foul the membrane. Against this, screening (to remove coarse solids) is generally less important.
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That is fine I would still like to attend a training session.
We are actually running the Practical MBRs course (4 hours) tomorrow 26th Feb for the American market. We only have two spaces left. If this is of interest, please let me know on claire@juddwater.com and I can reserve you a space:
https://www.juddwater.com/training/courses/a-practical-guide-to-mbrs-getting-them-going-keeping-them-running/
Thanks
Hi Charles,
We supply bespoke training in MBRs:
https://www.juddwater.com/training/
but this does not accrue CEUs. We provide an attendance certificate and, although we cannot guarantee acceptance, you may be able to submit this certificate to your State Water Environment Association for continuing professional development accreditation purposes.
Otherwise, we suggest you put a question on The MBR Forum on LinkedIn.com - someone may be able to recommend a suitable provider.
Looking for a MBR Training class with 12 CEU's