Hybrid System Coupling Moving Bed Bioreactor with UV/O₃ Oxidation and Membrane Separation Units for Treatment of...

This paper describes the investigations on the possibilities of treatment of wastewater generated in an industrial laundry with application of a combined biological-photooxidation- membrane system aimed at water recycle and reuse. The two treatment schemes were compared: 1) scheme A consisting of a treatment in a moving bed biological reactor (MBBR) followed by microfiltration (MF) and nanofiltration (NF), and 2) scheme B comprising MBBR followed by oxidation by photolysis enhanced with in situ generated O₃ (UV/O₃) after which MF and NF were applied. The removal efficiency in MBBR reached 95-97% for the biochemical oxygen demand; 90-93% for the chemical oxygen demand and 89-99% for an anionic and a nonionic surfactants. The application of UV/O₃ system allowed to decrease the content of the total organic carbon by 68% after 36 h of operation with a mineralization rate of 0.36 mg/L·h. Due to UV/O₃ pretreatment, a significant mitigation of membrane fouling in the case of both MF and NF processes was achieved. The MF permeate flux in the system B was over two times higher compared to that in the system A. Based on the obtained results it was concluded that the laundry wastewater pretreated in the MBBR-UV/O₃-MF-NF system could be recycled to any stage of the laundry process.