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Highlights 2011

Local water treatment in developing countries

Providing hygienically safe drinking water to remote and eco-
nomically less developed regions on earth is still one of the largest
challenges in water management. The Swiss water research insti-
tute Eawag, Dbendorf, proved that membranes can also perform
their task in simply constructed local units without sophisticated
plant construction, trained personnel, external energy supply and
equipment for chemical cleaning by means of gravity-driven mem-
brane disinfection (GDMD) as shown in fig. 3. Similar to the water
backpack PAUL developed at the University of Kassel for applica-
tion in disaster areas (F&S reported several times), raw water is
poured from above into the filtration container. An ultrafiltration
membrane is located on its bottom. Prior to application for domes-
tic water treatment in Kenya, the system was tested in the labora-
tory, where it was operated for two years without backwashing and
cleaning. Amongst other things, the effects of the membrane cut-
offs and the developing fouling layer on the flow and the retention
of MS2 phages were measured. According to these tests, a mem-
brane cut-off in the range of 100 kDa to 0.2 m hardly has any
influence on the flux that can be measured during operation for
several weeks due to the fouling layer. However, the fouling layer
results in increased retention of the MS2 phages with an ultrafil-
tration membrane compared to the non-fouled membrane, while
the retention of the microfiltration membrane (0.2m) even deteri-
orates. Ultrafiltration membranes are recommended to ensure suf-
ficient water disinfection.

Fig. 3: Ultrafiltration in a plastic box: gravity-powered water disinfection
with an ultrafiltration membrane (Microdyn-Nadir GmbH) for local drink-
ing water treatment (Photo: EAWAG, Switzerland)
Literature:
/1/ Pinnekamp, J.; Wessling, M.; Melin, T.: 6th IWA Specialist Conference on Membrane
Technology for Water and Wastewater Treatment Aachen 2011
/2/ McCutcheon, J.L.; McGinnis, R.L.; Elimenech, M.: The Ammonia-Carbon Dioxide Forward
Osmosis Desalination Process; Water Conditioning & Purification, October, 2006
/3/ Yin Yip, N.; Tiraferri, A.; Phillip, W.A.; Schiffman, J.D.; Elimelech, M.: High Performance
Thin-Film Composite Forward Osmosis Membrane; Environmental Science & Technology
2010, 44 (10), S. 3812 -3818

Integrated membrane bioreactors

(MBR) and reverse osmosis (RO) for
water reuse J. Hadler, Christoph Kullmann*

1. Introduction
Increasing competition for limited
water resources and continual pressure to
reduce costs are huge challenges for the
water treatment industry. The same factors
are relevant for both municipal and indus-
trial markets and for water and wastewater
treatment. While water reuse is the obvi-
ous way of addressing the resource issue,
it places increased focus on producing
water of the appropriate quality for reuse
using an economically viable process.
Reverse osmosis (RO) has been used by
many plants as part of a water reuse scheme.
* Jan Hadler, Christoph Kullmann
Koch Membrane Systems, Aachen / Germany
infoeurope@kochmembrane.com
Phone +49 (0) 241 41326 0
RO will remove most dissolved solids so
that water can be recycled into many
industrial processes or for secondary uses,
or even as part of an indirect potable reuse
scheme. However, there are some major
challenges for RO systems operating on
biologically treated wastewater. Many RO
systems today use membrane filtration as
pre-treatment to remove suspended solids.
The membrane system does an excellent
job of providing water with low suspended
solids to feed an RO. However, the mem-
brane system requires additional space and
does not effectively reduce the amount of
dissolved contaminants such as organics
that are fed to an RO system. To remove
dissolved organics a biological waste
water treatment is required. Instead of sep-
arating the biological treatment process
and the ultrafiltration (UF) step, it has
become state of the art to combine both
processes in a membrane bioreactor
(MBR). The membranes are integrated
into the biological process. Advantages of
this process are that clarifiers are no longer
required, and the effluent quality is con-
siderably better, which improves RO per-
formance. Additionally, the MBR process
reduces footprint significantly compared
to the combination of wastewater treat-
ment followed by membrane filtration.
This article will describe the benefits of
using an integrated system that uses MBR
as pre-treatment for RO. Data from sys-
tems in operation will be used to show
how the pre-treatment needs of RO are met
and how the MBR/RO system assists in
meeting the overall project goals.

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Highlights 2011

2. Membrane selection for an MBR module and the integrated

The membrane industry has been work-
ing hard to develop products and process-
es for membrane bioreactors and RO sys-
tems that achieve the required technical
performance at an acceptable price for
both industrial users and municipalities.
Some aspects that should be considered
when selecting the right MBR membrane
and RO elements supplier will be
described later. Experience has shown that
selecting both parts from one membrane
supplier has a positive effect on the long-
term and stable operation of the overall
system. It ensures the best fine-tuning of
both parts and thus avoids strenuous dis-
cussions and the typical finger-pointing
when the system is down or performance
is poor.
As the MBR market is rapidly growing
several submerged modules for this appli-
cation have been established. There are a
handful of manufacturers that can demon-
strate large scale experience, Koch
Membrane Systems with the PURON
product being one of them, see fig. 1.
Each MBR module from the various
suppliers has its advantages but also disad-
vantages, and it is not the purpose of this
article to discuss these. The requirements
system are very specific for industrial
applications because waste water treat-
ment or water reuse is never the primary
task of an industry but a needed evil.
Therefore it is prerequisite for the mem-
brane module and the system to be reliable
and easy to operate. In this context it is
important to notice that costs of such a
system are not only capital costs, influ-
enced by membrane price, but mainly
operational costs in form of power
demand, chemical consumption, mem-
brane replacement and last but not least
maintenance and daily operation. Key fea-
tures that are important for the acceptance
of an MBR system for water reuse with
subsequent RO are:
- Provide a permeate of a quality that is
suitable for RO treatment
- Low life cycle costs Figure 1: The PURON MBR Module from
- Reliability, and to a large extend auto- Koch Membrane Systems
mated operation including fully automat-
ed maintenance cleaning. 3. Design considerations for
- Support by experienced technical service MBR/RO integration
team. Key to the successful operation is a The following chapter summarizes
support team that quickly supports the some of the key aspects that should be
operator and if requested helps with sys- considered when designing integrated
tem supervision (not operation), operator MBR/RO systems. The information is
training and performance evaluation. based on operating experiences over more

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F & S International Edition No. 12/2012 41

03_highlights_2011_RZ__ 29.05.12 21:08 Seite 42
Table 1: Operating data
Figure 2: Chemical cleaning
Figure 3: Treatment scheme
than four years. As the technology contin-
ues to be widely adopted further learnings
will undoubtedly occur and the systems
will further evolve.
3.1 Prevention of fouling
In the combination of MBR and RO for
water reuse, the protection of the RO
against components that can cause fouling
is most critical. There are four categories
of fouling that need to be considered:
1. Particles that might block the brine
spacers of the RO
2. Fouling of the RO by adsorption of
residual soluble organics in the RO feed
3. Biofouling caused by bacteria growing
downstream of the permeate side of the
UF
4. Inorganic fouling (scaling) by exceed-
ing the solubility level of salts
42
Ad 1) The rejection of particles is the
biggest advantage of using a combination
of biological treatment and Ultrafiltration,
either in form of conventional wastewater
treatment plus tertiary treatment by UF, or
in form of MBR, (in comparison to bio-
logical treatment with sedimentation and
sand filtration). Using Ultrafiltration on
biologically treated water generates a per-
meate where suspended solids are less
than 1 mg/l and a particle size < 0.1m.
Ad 2) Reducing the amount of soluble
organics in the waste water before entering
the RO is the second major advantage of
an MBR. In comparison to applying UF as
tertiary filtration, the combination of bio-
logical treatment and UF in the integrated
process of an MBR, increases the efficien-
cy of biodegradation significantly. It has
been proven in the past that MBRs can
reduce COD and nutrient levels far below
that achieved by conventional biological
Highlights 2011
treatment only. To achieve high removal of
COD and nutrients, a proper design of the
biology is essential. The design considera-
tions should include plug flow reactors,
multiple recirculation flows, pre-
Denitrification, selectors, anaerobic zones,
de-oxygenation tanks etc.
Ad 3) Biofouling is the most critical
issue for the RO and how to reduce it.
Several parameters on system design and
plant operation have been proven to be
effective. Biofouling requires both the
presence of microorganisms and a nutrient
source. Even though both have been sig-
nificantly reduced by the biological treat-
ment in the MBR process, small amounts
of bacteria and soluble nutrients are still
present in the permeate of the UF. In com-
bination with factors like residence time,
elevated temperatures and sometimes
light, ideal conditions have been created to
promote bio-growth. To reduce bio-growth
the following measures have proven to be
effective:
- Piping between MBR and buffer tank
should be as short as possible without
any dead zones. Unnecessary long piping
increases residence times and gives time
and area for bio-films to grow. If these
bio-films detach from the pipe, either
naturally or by chemical cleaning, they
might block the brine spacers of the RO.
Safety filters on the RO inlet can protect
the RO but must be frequently
changed/cleaned.
- The MBR buffer tank should be large
enough to feed the RO system, but small
enough to keep retention time below 30
minutes. The requirements of an RO
might be in opposition to this, but long
residence times and high temperatures
will lead to bio-growth. It is also impor-
tant to choose a tank material that does
not allow light penetration. Otherwise
algae will grow.
- Chemical cleaning of the MBR mem-
branes should be carried out frequently.
Experience shows that a more frequent
dosing of low concentration chlorine pre-
vents biogrowth in the permeate system
of the MBR.
- Another measure to reduce biogrowth is
the use of chloramines to disinfect the
water downstream the MBR. Experience
has shown that the best place of dosing is
upstream of the feed tank to the RO, see
figure 2.
Ad 4) Inorganic fouling is a well known
problem for RO applications. Therefore
the use of antiscalants is normal to these
systems and will not be the focus of this
paper. Where it makes sense to take a sec-
ond look is inorganic fouling of the MBR
modules. Due to the fact that often indus-
trial water with a high amount of dissolved
components shall be treated, it is impor-
tant to take a look at the pH changes in the
F & S International Edition No. 12/2012
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Highlights 2011

MBR. Increasing pH promotes precipita-

tion of salts like e.g. calcium phosphate or
calcium sulphate. Also the denitrification
process and the module aeration increase
the pH of the water. The latter one occurs
by stripping out CO2. In this respect it is
beneficial to choose a membrane module
that requires very little aeration for air
scouring.

4 Case study: Brewing industry

One example of integrated MBR/RO is
a brewery in Africa. The problem of the
brewery was the quality of water that
could be taken from a borehole. The bore-
hole suffered from infiltration of seawater
and thus increasing salinity. The goal of
the water reuse system is to reduce the
amount of water taken from the borehole
and by this to improve the water quality.
The effluent of the brewery was originally
treated through an anaerobic digester fol-
lowed by a conventional activated sludge
treatment process. The existing activated
sludge step was converted to an MBR with
Figure 4: Membrane bioreactor with submerged PURON membrane modules
UF membranes, thereby producing a treat-
ed stream sufficiently advanced that it can
be treated directly by RO. The RO perme-
ate is utilized in the service water system
and as an alternative class of water for spe-
cific points of use within the brewery. The
stream is polished further by activated car-
bon adsorption prior to being disinfected
and stored for reuse, see figure 3.
The system uses four PURON modules
with a membrane area 1,500 m2 each, and
was commissioned in February 2009. Due
to the fact that all postulations of chapter 3
were incorporated into the system it
demonstrates an excellent performance.
Table 1 gives an overview about key per-
formance data of the system.

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