Performance and optimization of lab-scale membrane bioreactors for synthetic municipal wastewater

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This study aimed to determine biokinetic coefficients and efficiency of three submerged membrane bioreactors (MBRs) comprising a conventional MBR, moving bioflim MBR (MB-MBR), and anoxic-oxic MBR (A/O-MBR) operated at laboratory scale for synthetic municipal wastewater (500 mg/L glucose chemical oxygen demand) at a hydraulic retention time of 8 h. The activated sludge was collected from sewage treatment plant I-9, Islamabad, and was acclimatized with synthetic wastewater for a time period of 60 d. The physicochemical and biological parameters were determined as per standard methods. The Monod rate equation was applied for estimating specific growth rate (μ), decay rate constant (Kd), yield coefficient (Y), half-velocity constant (Ks), and maximum specific growth rate (μm). The A/O-MBR showed the highest removal efficiencies of total organic carbon and nitrogen (94 and 82% respectively) and also maximum kinetic coefficients were obtained and values of Y, Kd, Ks, and μmax coefficients were 0.77 mg/mg, 0.066 d−1, 271 mg/l, and 1.44 d−1, respectively. Therefore, the study aimed at optimizing MBRs system by optimization of the kinetics.