Page 415 - Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Recycling and Reuse

An Introduction to Biological Treatment and Membrane Filtration 387

Figure 9.10 Submerged MBR module.

2. Fresh water availability was limited.
3. Absence of industrial waste drain making it important to treat and reuse
and minimize waste.
4. Treatment was thus necessary to provide useful reuse in the system.
5. A limited footprint is available for installation of a conventional process
or sludge handling system.
This was an ideal situation for using Aqua EMBR, which was successfully
installed and has been working to satisfactorily.
This chapter deals with one of the challenges that arose.

9.8 TYPICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF POLYMER-BASED
CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIAL WASTEWATER

The wastewater in the present case study was characterized by the presence
of high COD and very low BOD. The BOD to COD ratio of effluent was in
the range of 0.1–0.2.
Detailed wastewater characterization is given in Table 9.4. The waste-
water had a very low BOD/COD ratio, which is in the range of 0.1–0.2,
indicating low biodegradability. The wastewater also contained nitrogen
in the form of organic nitrogen, which is converted to ammoniacal nitrogen
in the process; further conversion of ammoniacal nitrogen to nitrate (nitrifi-
cation) is an important oxidation step. Otherwise, there is a possibility of free
ammonia generation, which might be toxic for the biological culture. The
wastewater showed pH and alkalinity in an acceptable range.