Coupling AnMBR, Primary Settling and Anaerobic Digestion to Improve Carbon Fate When Treating Sulfate-Rich Wastewater

The present work involved an assessment of the technical feasibility of coupling AnMBR, primary settling and anaerobic digestion to treat sulfate-rich wastewater at ambient temperature. The innovative approach used focused on reducing the carbon footprint of wastewater treatment while maximizing the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water (Basel) 2023-10, Vol.15 (20), p.3574
Main Authors: Mateo, Oscar, Sanchis-Perucho, Pau, Giménez, Juan B., Robles, Ángel, Martí, Nuria, Serralta, Joaquín, Seco, Aurora
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biogas
Biomass energy
Ecological footprint
Emission standards
Energy
Greenhouse gases
Methane
Microorganisms
Resource recovery
Sensors
Sludge
Sulfates
Temperature
Wastewater
Water treatment
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Summary:The present work involved an assessment of the technical feasibility of coupling AnMBR, primary settling and anaerobic digestion to treat sulfate-rich wastewater at ambient temperature. The innovative approach used focused on reducing the carbon footprint of wastewater treatment while maximizing the energy recovered from influent organic matter. In this process, primary settling reduces the COD/SO4-S ratio in the influent of the AnMBR system and completely removes organic matter by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), while increasing the COD/SO4-S ratio in the sidestream anaerobic digester (AD), enhancing energy recovery and biogas quality. This approach has the significant advantage of only producing methane in the AD, so that the AnMBR produces a high-quality, methane-free effluent with no environmental impact from fugitive methane emissions. The performance of this treatment scheme was assessed by operating a demonstration-scale AnMBR plant fed by primary settled municipal wastewater at the hydraulic retention times of 25, 12 and 8.5 h. The results showed that the COD and BOD removed by SRB enabled setting the discharge limits at 25 and 12 h and lowered the carbon footprint to levels below those of an AnMBR plant fed by raw municipal wastewater, mainly by eliminating fugitive methane emissions.
ISSN:2073-4441
2073-4441
DOI:10.3390/w15203574