A kinetic study of a membrane anaerobic reactor (MAR) for treatment of sewage sludge Presented at the Conference on Desalination and the Environment, Santa Margherita, Italy, 22-26 May 2005. European Desalination Society

The application of kinetic models (Monod, Contois and Chen & Hashimoto) and overall microbial kinetic on the membrane anaerobic reactor (MAR) for treatment of sewage sludge was investigated. The system consists of a cross-flow ultrafiltration membrane and six steady states were attained over a range of mixed liquor suspended solids of 12,760-21,800 mg/l. The results of all six steady states were successfully fitted above 98% for three known kinetics. The growth yield coefficient, Y, was found to be 0.74 gVSS/gCOD while the specific microorganism decay rate was 0.20 d super(-1). The k values were in the range of 0.350-0.519 gCOD/gVSS.d and mu sub(max) values were between 0.259 and 0.384 d super(-1). The COD removal efficiency was 96.5-99% with HRT of 7.8 days. The methane gas yield was between 0.19 l/g COD/d to 0.54 l/g COD/d when the organic loading rate increased from 0.1 kg COD/m super(3)/d to 10 kg COD/m super(3)/d. The system efficiency was greatly influenced by SRT and OLRs. Membrane flux rate deterioration was observed from 62.1 l/m super(2)/h to 6.9 l/m super(2)/h due to membrane fouling.