Evaluation of Performance of Wastewater Treatment Plant at KACST, Riyadh Saudi Arabia

The study was carried to evaluate the performance of Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) at KACST consisting of Membrane Bio-reactor (MBR), Nano-filtration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) processes for wastewater treatment to determine its reuse characteristics. Water samples were collected from raw sewage effluent, Membrane Bio-reactor (MBR), Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Nano-filtration (NF) water treatment processes. An experimental results showed that some water quality parameters reduction (%) was 96.5, 95.17, 80.1, 98.29 and 94.37 for Ca, Mg, Na, SO4 and Cl, respectively in the new RO membrane- product water. The significant reduction in the ion removal efficiency might be subjected to fouling and bio-fouling of the membrane bio-reactor (MBR), RO and NF membranes due to the presence of organic pollutants coupled with wear and tear of membranes after 9-years of installation. The study findings provided concrete clue for replacing the existing wastewater treatment methods with more advanced methods using ceramic membranes. The research further highlighted the necessary to replace the NF and RO membranes used in these two water treatment techniques.