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Treatment of Industrial Effluents, Municipal Wastes, and Potable Water 217
7. Good esthetics – appearance, odor, etc.
8. Modular design: easily expandable for future capacity.
4. PROCESS APPLICATIONS
4.1. Industrial Wastewater Treatment
The various advantages of the MBR process system give it a unique application niche in
the treatment of industrial wastewater. Typical wastewater characteristics where MBR
becomes a viable technology are as follows:
1. Flow rate: approximately up to 500,000 gpd.
2. COD: greater than approximately 2,000 mg/L.
Industries where this technology can be implemented include chemical, petrochemical,
pharmaceutical, fine chemicals, cosmetics, dairy, pulp and paper, automotive, landfill leachate,
food, textiles, etc.
An MBR system has been designed for a petrochemical company located in south-east
Texas to treat three high-strength industrial wastewater, containing alcohols and sulfurcontaining
compounds (17). The design was based on a field pilot test conducted by Envirogen,
a company in Lawrenceville, NJ. One wastewater stream consisted of approximately
60% isopropanol by weight. The other streams contained light hydrocarbons and organic
sulfides. The influent COD to the MBR system was 25,000 mg/L. Removal efficiencies
averaged 90–95%, thereby allowing the plant to stay within regulatory limits cost-effectively.
The three streams treated accounted for less than 2% of the plant’s hydraulic wastewater load,
but over 70% of the organic wastewater load.
An industrial plant manager would like to consider possible adoption of an MBR process
system for treating the industrial wastewater, usually because of the following reasons:
1. MBR system has smaller plant footprint because it treats low-flow high-strength streams and
operates at a much higher MLSS concentration.
2. MBR system has the possibility to recycle 40% of treated effluent to existing RO step (no further
pretreatment steps is required).
3. MBR’s modularity is suitable to double the capacity in future.
4. MBR system can be installed easily in old unused building.
5. MBR system has much less excess biosolids (sludge) production – its highly concentrated
biosolids can be used as supplemental fuel in a boiler.
6. MBR system is the most cost-effective and reliable solution overall.
7. On-site pilot tests have shown simplicity and ease of operation of the MBR system.
4.2. Municipal Wastewater and Leachate Treatments
For treatment of high-flow low-strength municipal wastewater, the MBR process system
cannot economically compete with the CAS process system, if
1. the municipality has plenty of land available for wastewater treatment (WWT) facility construction;
2. the treated effluent does not have to meet very stringent effluent standards (including nutrient
removal and/or heavy metal removal);