Hamburg University of Technology, Institute of Wastewater Management and Water Protection, Eissendorfer Str. 42, 21073 Hamburg, Germany.
Water Sci Technol. 2012;65(9):1648-53. doi: 10.2166/wst.2012.880.
Membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology is a very reliable and extensively tested solution for biological wastewater treatment. Nowadays, separate treatment of highly polluted wastewater streams especially from hospitals and other health care facilities is currently under investigation worldwide. In this context, the MBR technology will play a decisive role because an effluent widely cleaned up from solids and nutrients is absolutely mandatory for a subsequent further elimination of organic trace pollutants. Taking hospital wastewater as an example, the aim of this study was to investigate to what extent MBR technology is an adequate 'pre-treatment' solution for further elimination of trace pollutants. Therefore, we investigated - within a 2-year period - the performance of a full-scale hospital wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) equipped with a MBR by referring to conventional chemical and microbiological standard parameters. Furthermore, we measured the energy consumption and tested different operating conditions. According to our findings the MBR treatment of the hospital wastewater was highly efficient in terms of the removal of solids and nutrients. Finally, we did not observe any major adverse effects on the operation and performance of the MBR system which potentially could derive from the composition of the hospital wastewater. In total, the present study proved that MBR technology is a very efficient and reliable treatment approach for the treatment of highly polluted wastewater from hospitals and can be recommended as a suitable pre-treatment solution for further trace pollutant removal.
膜生物反应器 (MBR) 技术是一种非常可靠且经过广泛测试的生物废水处理解决方案。如今，对高度污染的废水流（特别是来自医院和其他医疗保健设施的废水）进行单独处理正在全球范围内进行研究。在这种情况下，MBR 技术将发挥决定性作用，因为需要从固体和营养物中得到广泛净化的出水，这对于后续进一步消除有机痕量污染物是绝对必要的。以医院废水为例，本研究旨在调查 MBR 技术在多大程度上是进一步消除痕量污染物的合适“预处理”解决方案。因此，我们在 2 年的时间内通过参考常规化学和微生物学标准参数，调查了配备 MBR 的全规模医院废水处理厂 (WWTP) 的性能。此外，我们还测量了能源消耗并测试了不同的操作条件。根据我们的发现，MBR 处理医院废水在去除固体和营养物方面非常有效。最后，我们没有观察到任何可能源自医院废水组成的对 MBR 系统运行和性能的重大不利影响。总的来说，本研究证明了 MBR 技术是一种非常高效和可靠的处理高度污染的医院废水的方法，并可以作为进一步去除痕量污染物的合适预处理方法。
