Department Process Engineering

EUROMBRA

Membrane bioreactor technology with an EU perspective for advanced municipal wastewater treatment strategies for the 21tf century

EUROMBRA is a research project supported by the EU under the sixth framework programme (Priority” Global Change and Ecosystems”. In the consortium of the project 18 institutions in the domain of research, industry and waste water disposal co-operate. Central task and objective of this international (10 nations) aligned research project are to optimise and to advance the membrane bioreactor technology (MBR), which is new, innovative and ambitious in the field of waste water treatment, in relation to performance, cost effectiveness and maintenance. In this context different research topics will be investigated such as membrane development, modes of operation, cleaning procedures and cost/benefit analyses.

Eawag is focusing on the following goals:

  • comparative performance of various state of the art full scale membrane modules for municipal wastewater treatment, operated in parallel in distinct compartments (each operated as an independent module) but sharing the same sludge (biology)
  • impact of peak loads on membrane performance and effluent quality
  • correlation of long term permeability behaviour with contact time between wastewater and sludge, prior to entering the membrane compartment
  • analysing the fouling processes and correlating the fouling and clogging tendency with sludge and matrix properties under the tested operational conditions
  • understanding the long term permeability behaviour with the help of analysing particle size and chemical analysis of particulate matter (cooperation with UNESCO-IHE, Institute for Water Education, Delft, Netherlands) as well as the pore size of the membrane
  • impact of reactor geometry onto permeability
  • strategies for optimised nutrient elimination for MBR
  • recommendations for reactor configuration, design and process control