Study on Pollutant Removal Efficiency of Industrial Wastewater Using Submerged Anaerobic Membrane Bio-Reactor

The industrial effluents contain more organic pollutants, the most favorable option to treat this by anaerobic treatment process. In this study, a lab scale submerged anaerobic flat membrane bioreactor was operated with pumping operation for the treatment of tannery effluent. This Reactor was used to investigate the Residence Time Distribution and Rheology of the wastewater in the reactor under different Organic Loading Rate. Initially, treatment efficiency of the Submerged Membrane Bio - reactor was studied by monitoring various parameters (COD, TSS, TS, Alkalinity, VFA and pH). The COD removal efficiency was increasing from 66.67% to 88.89% invariably of the sludge retention inside the reactor. The results also showed that the membrane fouling was also occurring simultaneously, which is always predominant in any type of membrane treatment process. In order to decrease the membrane fouling rate, gas recirculation and effluent recirculation were employed and it proved efficient throughout the rheology study. The combined use of gas bubbles and periodic backwashing enables operation in high filtrate fluxes without seriously increasing the fouling resistance. RTD was maintained between 6 to 12 days with 18kg/m3/day was found to be optimum in efficient removal efficiency. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.