Turning Waste into Treasure The World's Most Promising Wastewater Treatment Technology, MBR, Deserves Its Name

  MBR, integrating the biodegradation of bioreactor and the high efficiency separation of membrane, is a new type of high efficiency wastewater biological treatment process generated by the organic combination of membrane technology and wastewater biological treatment technology. The application in many fields of water treatment has received widespread attention, known as one of the most promising new water treatment technologies worldwide, and it is believed that the future MBR process will have a broad prospect in the development of buried sewage treatment plants.
   
 At present, China's urban wastewater treatment leading goal has begun to change from the traditional “sewage treatment, discharge standards” to water quality regeneration treatment as the core of the “water recycling”, from pure “pollution control “rise to” water ecological restoration and recovery ”. This requires the use of contemporary high-tech, and gradually sewage “waste into treasure”, so that the treated sewage to meet a variety of water ways of recycled water quality requirements, so MBR technology is favored.

What is MBR?      
MBR wastewater treatment is a common way of modern wastewater treatment, which uses membrane bioreactor (Membrane Bioreactor, referred to as MBR) technology is a new technology that combines biological treatment technology and membrane separation technology. It is a one-step treatment of sewage into high-quality recycled water new high-end technology, with environmental protection, open source and the development of circular economy of the comprehensive benefits, is to promote the implementation of energy saving and emission reduction, the development of circular economy, the best choice to achieve higher technology routes.  

  With the continuous reduction of MBR technology investment and operating costs, as well as more stringent water resource protection and pollution control policies and standards to deepen the implementation of the advantages of MBR technology will be more and more fully realized. At the same time, in recent years, the domestic membrane materials, membrane group equipment development and production has also made new and greater progress. Previously, more than 90% of domestic projects using foreign membrane materials, domestic membrane materials are mainly used in smaller-scale projects.   
 China's sewage treatment technology level is basically synchronized with foreign countries, and has successfully stepped out of the introduction of a digestive, research and development and innovation of the development of the road. Existing urban wastewater treatment plants mainly use ordinary activated sludge method, oxidation ditch method, anaerobic-anoxic- aerobic method (A2/O) and sequential batch activated sludge method (SBR). Among them, oxidation ditch method, anaerobic-anoxic- aerobic method (A2/O) and sequential batch activated sludge method (SBR) occupy an increasing proportion in the construction of new wastewater treatment plants, and have become the three traditional mainstream process technologies for urban wastewater treatment in China at this stage.    

The membrane material is to realize the role of the membrane separation of the core components; membrane group is the membrane material in some form of assembly in a basic unit of equipment, through a smaller volume to expand the membrane area and improve the efficiency of the membrane of the device, is the key equipment of the MBR process; by a number of membrane group and the automatic control system composed of a collection of equipment for the membrane group system; membrane group and its system is the realization of the role of the membrane separation of the main carriers.    However, the effect of water treatment depends on the performance of membrane materials and the efficiency of the membrane group and its system, but also depends on the technical level of MBR process. Therefore, MBR technology includes three key areas: membrane material manufacturing technology, membrane equipment technology and MBR process technology.       

MBR works by using aerobic microorganisms in the reactor to degrade the organic pollutants in the sewage, and at the same time using nitrifying bacteria in the reactor to transform the ammonia nitrogen in the sewage. Finally, through the hollow fiber membrane for efficient solid-liquid separation of water. 70's in the United States, Japan, South Africa and many European countries have begun to membrane bioreactor for sewage and wastewater treatment research work. The water source is taken from domestic sewage (e.g. shower drainage, toilet drainage, laundry drainage, kitchen drainage, toilet drainage, etc.) and cooling water.

Advantages of MBR     
 MBR replaces the conventional secondary sedimentation tank, which can efficiently separate solids and liquids to obtain stable water for direct use. And can maintain a high concentration of microorganisms in the biological pool, the process of residual sludge is small, very effective removal of ammonia nitrogen, suspended solids and turbidity in the effluent is close to zero, the effluent of bacteria and viruses are substantially removed, low energy consumption, separation process is simple, covers an area of small.    And the membrane as a filtration medium clogging, membrane water throughput with the operation time and gradually decline, effective backwashing and chemical cleaning can slow down the decline in membrane flux, to maintain the effective service life of the MBR system.

Application of MBR technology
In urban wastewater treatment, fully automatic operation and management can be realized. In recent years, underground MBR wastewater treatment process is more and more widely used. Compared with the traditional process, underground MBR can save 20% of the area, and the effluent water quality is good. Therefore, MBR process is favored by many sewage treatment plants. It is believed that the MBR process will have a broad future in the development of buried sewage treatment plants.    
Membrane materials manufacturing industry, the performance and price of membrane materials directly affect the performance of membrane equipment, MBR process optimization space and MBR project investment costs and operating costs, so the industry's mature business model is to melt the direction of membrane materials. Membrane materials manufacturing industry scope and application field is wide, its energy and power, non-ferrous metallurgy, desalination, water treatment, sewage reuse and medicine and food and other fields of engineering applications to expand rapidly, belongs to the attention of the countries and support of the new materials industry.

MBR development trend 

  From the MBR increasingly wide range of applications, the future development of MBR new trends are mainly manifested in the following aspects.
(1) Carry out the optimization design of the new membrane module assembled and intensive modular;
(2) Research on new membrane production methods, the development of membrane materials with superior performance;
(3) Development of a new type of MBR, and find suitable MBR can be long-term stable operation of the process conditions.    With the industrialization of membrane technology and membrane applications in various industries to expand, the future MBR applications may gain rapid development of key areas and directions are as follows.
(1) applied to the treatment of high concentration, toxic, difficult to degrade industrial wastewater. Such as high-concentration organic wastewater is a more common source of pollution, the national paper, sugar, alcohol, leather, synthetic fatty acids and other industries each year, high-concentration organic wastewater emissions are very large, this type of wastewater using conventional activated sludge treatment, although there is a certain role, but the quality of the effluent water is difficult to meet the requirements of the discharge standards. MBR in the technical advantages, decided that it can be difficult to deal with conventional methods of effective sewage treatment, and the effluent can be reused.
(2) Renewal and upgrading of existing municipal wastewater treatment plants, especially for the effluent is difficult to meet the standards or treatment of the dramatic increase in the flow and can not expand the footprint of the situation.
(3) Apply to areas and places with sewage reuse needs, such as car wash industry, hotels, mobile public toilets, etc. Give full play to the membrane bioreactor covers an area of small, compact equipment, automatic control, flexible and convenient features.
(4) applied to landfill leachate treatment and reuse.
(5) applied in the application of small-scale sewage treatment plant, which is determined by the price of the membrane.
(6) Application in areas without drainage network system, such as small settlements, vacation areas, tourist scenic areas, etc.
(7) Applications for trace pollutant removal from drinking water sources in existing waterworks.   

 In conclusion, the MBR principle greatly improves the function of the traditional activated sludge treatment process, and its application in many fields of water treatment has likewise received widespread attention. In the 21st century's era of innovation requirements, it is well deserved to be recognized as one of the most promising new water treatment technologies on a global scale.