Experimental study of the anaerobic urban wastewater treatment in a submerged hollow-fibre membrane bioreactor at pilot scale

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of several operational variables on both biological and separation process performance in a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor pilot plant that treats urban wastewater. The pilot plant is equipped with two industrial hollow-fibre ultrafiltration membrane modules (PURON¿ Koch Membrane Systems, 30m 2 of filtration surface each). It was operated under mesophilic conditions (at 33°C), 70days of SRT, and variable HRT ranging from 20 to 6h. The effects of the influent COD/SO 4-S ratio (ranging from 2 to 12) and the MLTS concentration (ranging from 6 to 22gL -1) were also analysed. The main performance results were about 87% of COD removal, effluent VFA below 20mgL -1 and biogas methane concentrations over 55% v/v. Methane yield was strongly affected by the influent COD/SO 4-S ratio. No irreversible fouling problems were detected, even for MLTS concentrations above 22gL -1. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.
This research work has been supported by the Spanish Research Foundation (CICYT Projects CTM2008-06809-C02-01 and CTM2008-06809-C02-02), which is gratefully acknowledged.