Hybrid membrane bioreactor for water recycling and phosphorus recovery

Abstract

This paper deals with the performance of hybrid membrane bioreactor (MBR) combining the precoagulation/sedimentation and membrane bioreactor. The hybrid MBR not only produces the treated water with excellent permeate quality but also shows much lower membrane fouling than the conventional MBR. It may come from its extremely low F/M ratio to maintain the low viscosity even in the high MLSS concentration range of about 20,000 mg/L. Some results of microbial community analysis in MBRs was conducted to demonstrate the other reason for its lower membrane fouling. Hybrid MBR has a high potential to be used for the recycling use of the municipal wastewater. Coagulated sludge produced in the hybrid MBR is a promising phosphorus resource. This paper also contains a recent progress of phosphorus recovery technology, which uses a new phosphoric acids absorbent, i.e. the hexagonal mesostructured zirconium sulfate (ZS). The ZS has the extremely high adsorption capacity of phosphoric acids through anion exchange. The adsorbed phosphoric acids are released from the ZS in a high pH range of about 13.