Application of A/O‐MBR for treatment of digestate from anaerobic digestion of cow manure

Abstract

AbstractBACKGROUND: Anaerobic digestion (AD) is widely used as an animal manure bioconversion technology. However, the effluent obtained from the digester during the wet‐AD process requires to be treated carefully before discharge if AD technology is to be developed as an effective and environmentally advantageous animal manure treatment.RESULTS: An anoxic/aerobic‐membrane bioreactor(A/O‐MBR) system has been developed for digestate treatment in an AD system treating cow manure. The performance of the A/O‐MBR system in terms of removal of nitrogen, COD and phosphorus were investigated. Results indicated that the average removal efficiencies of NH4‐N+, COD and PO43−‐P were 98.1%, 96.3% and 76.6%, respectively. The fouled membrane from the A/O‐MBR system was cleaned effectively using NaOH and a 30h soak time.CONCLUSION: This study suggests that it is technically feasible to use the A/O‐MBR for the treatment of digestate from a cow manure AD system, and can provide an environmentally acceptable way for the application of wet‐AD in animal manure treatment. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry