Membrane Technology in Wastewater Treatment: Tertiary Membrane Filtration (tmf) Systems, an Economically Attractive Alternative to Membrane Bioreactors (mbr)

The use of membranes for treating wastewater is now widespread. Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) have rapidly emerged as a key technology for both industrial and municipal wastewater treatment due to their ability to deliver high final effluent water quality and their relatively small footprint as compared to a conventional Activated Sludge (AS) process. The costs of MBRs have fallen by almost a factor of 10 in the last decade driven by technical improvements (e.g. higher fluxes, longer membrane lifetimes, lower aeration requirements) and by economies of scale. We have now reached the point where the capital costs for MBR systems are fairly competitive with conventional systems (AS) systems, particularly where land acquisition is expensive. This combination of high quality effluent and reasonable capital costs coupled with over ten years experience demonstrating reliable operation has lead to the installation of around 4000 MBR systems worldwide, with many systems now treating flows in excess of 1 MGD (4 MLD) and some above 10 MGD (40 MLD).