A pilot study for wastewater reclamation and reuse with MBR/RO and MF/RO systems

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the quality of the effluent of an enhanced tertiary treatment process consisting of MBR/RO or MF/RO units and explore the feasibility of reclamation of treated effluent for potable and non-potable reuse applications. The performance of both the MBR/RO and MF/R...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Desalination 2007-01, Vol.202 (1), p.106-113
Main Authors: Tam, L.S., Tang, T.W., Lau, G.N., Sharma, K.R., Chen, G.H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Chemical engineering
Effluent reuse
Escherichia coli
Exact sciences and technology
General purification processes
Membrane bio-reactor
Membrane separation (reverse osmosis, dialysis...)
Pollution
Reactors
Reverse osmosis
Sewage treatment
Wastewaters
Water reclamation
Water treatment and pollution
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the quality of the effluent of an enhanced tertiary treatment process consisting of MBR/RO or MF/RO units and explore the feasibility of reclamation of treated effluent for potable and non-potable reuse applications. The performance of both the MBR/RO and MF/RO pilot plants was excellent. The MBR or MF alone was able to bring down the concentrations of most of the pollutants under acceptable limits for non-potable reuse applications. The application of RO further improved the treated water quality, especially the aesthetical and microbial qualities. Different strategies were employed to control membrane fouling in RO, and hypochlorite dosing showed the best results. The RO permeate quality in terms of conductivity, turbidity, organic content, ammonia, nitrate, hardness, E. coli and virus could meet the water quality requirements for many potable and non-potable reuse applications. In removal of total estrogens, the MBR/RO combination performed better than that of MF with RO, indicating the importance of the role of biomass. The rejection of virus in MBR and MF was greatly affected by the chemical membrane cleaning. It took more than 24 h for the recovery, implying that the presence of membrane biofilm plays a key role in rejection of virus.
ISSN:0011-9164
1873-4464
DOI:10.1016/j.desal.2005.12.045