Combining submerged membrane technology with anaerobic and aerobic wastewater treatment

Abstract

This thesis is framed in the field of industrial and municipal wastewater treatment. Increasingly strict legislations lead to the need of developing compact and efficient systems for the removal of both organic matter and nutrients. Membrane technology has expanded at a remarkable rate over the pass twenty years, and nowadays enhances a multi-billion dollar industry. The present work has been focused on the treatment of both urban and industrial wastewaters with different aerobic and anaerobic technologies, all of them combined with submerged membranes. Thus, tertiary membrane filtration of secondary effluents from two sequencial batch reactors with flocculent and granular biomass were firstly studied. Then, the operation of a combined system integrated by an anaerobic UASB reactor with an aerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR) and the feasibility of denitrification with the dissolved methane present in the effluent of the UASB were studied. Finally, the operation of an anaerobic MBR treating industrial wastewater was assessed. Especial attention was paid to the study of membrane fouling in all the operating systems.