Studies on Submerged Ceramic Membrane Bioreactor for Waste Water Purification

Abstract

Water is the most valuable resource on the planet earth. Each and every entity in the biota is dependent on water for survival. Good quality of water is very important in order to sustain life and ensure balanced ecosystem. With the advent of modern civilisation the prominence to comforts and luxuries of epicurean man has led to the depletion of the water which is the most useful natural resource leading to water pollution. Water pollution causes water crisis and also possess potential threat to the environment throughout the globe so it is very important to prevent and control water pollution. The present work focuses on water pollution control using submerged ceramic membrane bioreactor (SCMBR). The SCMBR is the combination of filtration unit and bioreactor unit for effective purification of wastewater. The SCMBR process is widely used in domestic and industrial wastewater treatment. The ceramic membranes used in SCMBR are reusable, eco-friendly and possesses high flux rate making it the best option for the membrane bioreactor system. The ceramic membranes are subjected to various characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and fourier-transformer infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy and BET surface area analysis. The effect of various experimental parameters such as pH, temperature, sludge retention time (SRT), hydraulic retention time (HRT), pressure, sludge concentration are investigated to understand the principles of the SCMBR. It is found that with increase in operating pressure, there is an innocuous reduction in operating time, thereby reducing the operation cost. The quality of effluent is found to be better at higher temperature, increased sludge concentration and lower pH. Thus the present study signifies the optimum conditions at which the SCMBR can be used so as to reduce the operating costs without affecting the efficacy of the process. newline