Hollow-Fiber Membrane Processes for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment

Title:	Hollow-Fiber Membrane Processes for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment
Category:	Miscellaneous
Date:	08. May 2009, 14:00 - 15:00
Venue:	Eawag Dübendorf
	BU B18
Speaker:	Prof. Robert Nerenberg, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Leader:	Kai Udert, Eawag
Download:	as calendar event

Conventional wastewater treatment processes are energy intensive and can emit, directly and indirectly, significant amounts of greenhouse gases.  In order to increase the sustainability of wastewater treatment, new approaches are needed.  An interesting approach is integrating hollow-fiber membranes (HFMs) into an activated sludge tank.  Banks of air-filled, HFMs can passively supply oxygen to biofilms forming on their outer surface, eliminating the need for bubbled aeration.  This greatly reduces energy requirements, can provide nutrient removal, and potentially can reduce N2O emissions.  Also, HFMs can be used as supports for microbial fuel cells (MFCs), allowing direct production of electricity from wastewater.  In this presentation, I will discuss our basic and applied research on HFM-supported biofilms for wastewater treatment, including a new process for removing total nitrogen from wastewater, the use of HFMs as MFCs, modeling of HFM-supported biofilms, and the potentital for NO and N2O production and emissions in HFM systems.