COD removal efficiency and mechanism of HMBR in high volumetric loading for ship domestic sewage treatment

The hybrid membrane bioreactor (HMBR) has been applied in ship domestic sewage treatment under high volumetric loading for ship space saving. The mechanism and influence factors on the efficiency, including hydraulic retention time (HRT), dissolved oxygen (DO) of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal were investigated. The HMBR's average COD removal rate was up to 95.13% on volumetric loading of 2.4 kgCOD/(m³•d) and the COD concentration in the effluent was 48.5 mg/L, far below the International Maritime Organization (IMO) discharge standard of 125 mg/L. DO had a more remarkable effect on the COD removal efficiency than HRT. In addition, HMBR revealed an excellent capability of resisting organics loading impact. Within the range of volumetric loading of 0.72 to 4.8 kg COD/(m³•d), the effluent COD concentration satisfied the discharge requirement of IMO. It was found that the organics degradation in the aeration tank followed the first-order reaction, with obtained kinetic parameters of v_max (2.79 d^-1) and K_s (395 mg/L). The original finding of this study had shown the effectiveness of HMBR in organic contaminant degradation at high substrate concentration, which can be used as guidance in the full scale of the design, operation and maintenance of ship domestic sewage treatment devices.