Potential of combining mechanical and physicochemical municipal wastewater pre-treatment with direct membrane filtration

Tobias Hey, Janne Väänänen, Nicolas Heinen, Jes la Cour Jansen, Karin Jönsson

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    At a full-scale wastewater treatment plant, raw municipal wastewater from the sand trap outlet was mechanically and physicochemically pre-treated before microfiltration (MF) in a large pilot-scale study. MF was performed using a low transmembrane pressure (0.03 bar) without backflushing for up to 159 h (∼6.6 d). Pre-filtration ensured stable MF operation compared with the direct application of raw wastewater on the membrane. The combination of physicochemical pre-treatment, such as coagulation, flocculation, and microsieving, with MF meets the European and Swedish discharge limits for small- and medium-sized wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The specific electricity footprint was 0.3–0.4 kWh·m−3, which is an improvement compared to the median footprint of 0.75 kWh·m−3 found in 105 traditional Swedish WWTPs with sizes of 1500–10,000 person equivalents. Furthermore, the biological treatment step can be omitted, and the risk of releasing greenhouse gases was eliminated. The investigated wastewater treatment process required less space than conventional wastewater treatment processes, and more carbon was made available for biogas production.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)108-115
    Number of pages8
    JournalEnvironmental Technology
    Volume38
    Issue number1
    Early online date2016 Jun 2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017 Jan

    Subject classification (UKÄ)

    • Water Engineering

    Free keywords

    • Direct membrane filtration
    • energy savings
    • low transmembrane pressure
    • pre-treatment
    • wastewater treatment

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