Performance evaluation of an side-stream anaerobic membrane bioreactor: Synthetic and alcoholic beverage industry wastewater

The treatment performance of a laboratory-scale anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) using high strength wastewater was evaluated. The AnMBR model system consisted of an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) and an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane. Its performance was first examined using molasses based synthetic wastewater at different hydraulic retention times (1-3 days) and organic loading rates (5-15 kg COD/m3.day). As a result of the experimental studies, maximum treatment efficiency with respect to COD reduction (95%) was achieved at 7.5 kg COD/m3.day OLR (CODinfluent=15.000 mg/L, HRT=2 days) applications. When OLR was increased to 15 kg COD/m3.day, system performance decreased sharply. Similarly, methane gas production decreased by increasing OLR. After then, feed was changed to real wastewater, which was alcoholic beverage industry effluent. At this study, maximum COD removal efficiency of the system and maximum methane gas production was 88% and 74%, respectively.