Performance of an ultrafiltration membrane bioreactor (UF-MBR) in wastewater treatment

This work presents the performance of an ultrafiltration membrane bioreactor (UF-MBR) system used as a means of removing pollution from domestic wastewater. Considering the technical performances of the process under different operational conditions, influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT), aeration rate and transmembrane pressure were observed. The evaluation of permeate quality, calculated by the removal efficiencies for various water quality indicators: chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, total suspended solids, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP). The best results obtained on the system (pressure p = 1.27 bar), HRT (15 h) showed removal efficiencies up to 90% in terms of organic compounds removal, 100% in terms of suspended solids presence and up to 80% reduction of TN and TP. The overall results suggest that the performance of the UF-MBR are likely to impact on the operation and maintenance of the system. However, the MBR process might be successfully applied as a treatment for the removal of pollution from domestic wastewater.