Treatment of dilute wastewater with two-stage upflow anaerobic sludge blanket membrane bioreactor

• Main Author: Chuah, Kian Pang.
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering::Water treatment
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49797
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) have seen great potential in wastewater treatment due to the anaerobic bioreactor’s ability to handle high strength wastewater and the membrane bioreactor’s (MBR) ability to effectively remove solids and nutrients. However treatment of dilute wastewater using AnMBRs is not well studied, especially one using an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor coupled with a MBR. Various configurations of AnMBR have been employed. A review of UASB-MBR reactors showed performance of 80-98% COD removal in low-strength wastewater. The operation conditions, roles of extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) and soluble microbial products (SMP), and start-up criteria have been studied. In this study, a UASB coupled with a microfiltration MBR was run with synthetic wastewater. COD removal of 97% was shown possible wish such two-stage setup. Methane production of 1475ml CH4/gVSS was achieved. Additional data on the two-stage setup is being collected to further analyze the effectiveness of an AnMBR using UASB-MBR configuration in low-strength wastewater treatment.