Three dimensional woven fabrics as filter media in membrane bioreactor for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Filters used in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) for wastewater treatment are low in filtration efficiency and the filtration process using MBR is relatively expensive, when low turbidity of treated water is required. To improve the filtration efficiency, three dimensional (3D) orthogonal woven fabrics with textured weft yarns are developed as a filter media used in MBR. Compared with a regular high-density two dimensional fabric filter, the 3D filter with multilayer and tortuous porous structure allows for 1–3 times higher flux and two times more filtered amount of wastewater in 30 days, while still maintaining a stable effluence turbidity and COD removal efficiency. The potential of applying the novel 3D woven filter in MBR for efficient wastewater treatment is proved.