Abstract
The aim of this work is to design and integrate an optimized batch membrane process in a conventional purification process used for the treatment of tannery wastewater. The integration was performed by using two spiral wound membrane modules in series, that is, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis, as substitutes to the biological reactor. The membrane process was designed in terms of sensible fouling issues reduction, which may be observed on the nanofiltration membrane if no optimization is performed. The entity of the fouling phenomena was estimated by pressure cycling measurements, determining both the critical and the threshold flux on the nanofiltration membrane. The obtained results were used to estimate the need of the overdesign of the membrane plant, as well as to define optimized operating conditions in order to handle fouling issues correctly for a long period of time. Finally, the developed membrane process was compared, from a technical and economic point of view, with the conventional biological process, widely offered as an external service near tannery production sites, and, here, proposed to be substituted by membrane technologies.
Highlights
The treatment and purification of tannery wastewater is a difficult task to accomplish, due to the variety and toxicity of the chemicals added during the different stages of the production of hides and skins
Two batch membrane processes in series, that is, nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), were used in order to completely avoid the need to rely on external treatment services, capable of purifying this wastewater by conventional biological treatment steps
The critical and threshold flux were measured for the NF membrane only, since RO did not show significant fouling issues in the adopted pressure range
Summary
The treatment and purification of tannery wastewater is a difficult task to accomplish, due to the variety and toxicity of the chemicals added during the different stages of the production of hides and skins. Throughout the years, research focused on many different conventional treatment processes of industrial wastewater effluents, such as biological process, oxidation process and chemical process [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Two batch membrane processes in series, that is, nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), were used in order to completely avoid the need to rely on external treatment services, capable of purifying this wastewater by conventional biological treatment steps
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