A practitioner's perspective on the application and research needs of membrane bioreactors for municipal wastewater treatment.
The application of membrane bioreactors (MBRs) for municipal wastewater treatment has increased dramatically over the last decade. From a practitioner's perspective, design practice has evolved over five "generations" in the areas of biological process optimization, separating process design from equipment supply, and reliability/redundancy thereby facilitating "large" MBRs (e.g. 150,000 m(3)/day). MBR advantages and disadvantages, and process design to accommodate biological nutrient removal, high mixed liquor suspended solids concentrations, operation and maintenance, peak flows, and procurement are reviewed from the design practitioner's perspective. Finally, four knowledge areas are identified as important to practitioners meriting further research and development: (i) membrane design and performance such as improving peak flow characteristics and decreasing operating costs; (ii) process design and performance such as managing the fluid properties of the biological solids, disinfection, and microcontaminant removal; (iii) facility design such as equipment standardization and decreasing mechanical complexity; and (iv) sustainability such as anaerobic MBRs.
CH2M HILL Canada Ltd., 245 Consumers Road, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2J 1R3. jeremy.kraemer@ch2m.com
Jeremy T
JT
Kraemer
Adrienne L
AL
Menniti
Zeynep K
ZK
Erdal
Timothy A
TA
Constantine
Bruce R
BR
Johnson
Glen T
GT
Daigger
George V
GV
Crawford
D019149:Bioreactors; D002947:Cities; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000295:instrumentation; D062065:Wastewater / Q000032:analysis*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*
D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D062065:Wastewater