Study on the performance characteristics of sequencing batch membrane bioreactor for distributed treatment of domestic wastewater

Abstract

A large amount of domestic wastewater is produced in our daily life. To sustainably use the urban domestic wastewater in the residential area and develop the equipment for distributed domestic wastewater treatment, the present work carried out a pilot study on the treatment of domestic wastewater by sequencing batch membrane bioreactor (SBMBR). Under the conditions of 20 L/h · m2 of average water flux, and 2 h/3 h of anaerobic/aerobic period, the SBMBR process showed a good treatment effect with a good quality of effluent (<50 mg/L of chemical oxygen demand (COD), <5 mg/L of ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), <15 mg/L of total nitrogen (TN), <2.6 NTU of turbidity, 96.9% of color removal and 99.9% of bacteria removal). The aeration quantity had a certain degree of impact on the removal of COD and the optimum aeration rate was 13.9 m3/m3 · h considering both the effectiveness and cost. When the SBMBR was continuously operated for 40 days, the transmembrane pressure reached 50 kPa and the membrane needed to clean. The hydrochloric acid (pH ≈ 2) was a suitable cleaning agent and the membrane was almost completely restored after cleaning.