A new technique to purify biologically treated wastewater by reverse osmosis: utilization of concentrate

Abstract

Introduction. Possibilities to purify municipal wastewater using reverse osmosis membrane techniques are investigated aimed at production of quality water for industrial use or meeting regulations for surface water sources discharge. A new eveloped tools to utilize concentrate effluents by reducing its flow by a value that does not exceed 0.5–1.0 per cent of initial feed water flow and it’s withdrawal of all rejected impurities together with dewatered sludge as a sludge moisture. Objectives: development of reverse osmosis techniques to purify wastewater after biological treatment; evaluation of possibilities to radically reduce concentrate flow to withdraw it together with activated sludge as it’s moisture.  Materials and methods. Experimental research is conducted to develop membrane operational modes during wastewater treatment. Experimental procedure is developed and described to evaluate reduction of membrane rejection of dissolved impurities and product flow decrease during experimental wastewater treatment and concentrate utilization test run.  Results. The basic equations are derived that enable us to determine: the required concentrate flow value that corresponds to concentration values of COD and suspended solids values in the feed water; the required values of membrane recoveries that correspond to ammonia concentration in the feed water to meet required regulation values in the product water. The tools to evaluate membrane area and a number of membrane modules are developed and described. Optimum values of the working pressure are evaluated as well as other economic parameters are presented to compare the developed techniques with biological treatment. Conclusions. To reach the required ammonia concentration in product water, double stage treatment of feed water with low-pressure reverse osmosis membranes is required. Influence of dissolved organics defined as COD, on membrane performance. The optimum value of working pressure is determined which is 7.5–8 Bars.