Pilot-scale test of industrial wastewater treatment by UASB and MBR using a ceramic flat sheet membrane for water reuse

A pilot plant was studied to investigate a new method for reclaiming wastewater from the industrial area of Jurong, producing high quality water from it for industrial reuse. The new process used an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) and a membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a submerged ceramic flat sheet membrane. The feedwater from the chamber with the industrial wastewater was high in chemical oxygen demand (COD), which varied between 644 and 2,380 mg L –1 and had a pH range of 6.7–7.1. The MBR process was operated in series at a flux of 18–25 Lm –2 h –1 for 100 days. The average COD and the biological oxygen demand of products of the above system were 155 and 9 mg L –1 , respectively. The results of this study indicated that a UASB-ceramic MBR process was capable of stably producing high quality water for industrial reuse from industrial wastewater.