Application of membrane bio-reactor for municipal wastewater treatment: A review

Abstract

Critical position of total accessible fresh water resources makes non-conventional water resources valuable to meet ever-increasing global water requirement. In this issue, municipal waste water can be a solution to reduce the pressure on fresh water reservoirs in number of nations. But, raw waste water poses serious threats to human health. Over the years, several treatment methods, e.g., constructed wetlands, waste stabilisation pond, vermi-filtration, membrane bio-reactor, up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor have been experimented to treat different types of waste water. The current investigation reviewed the performance of membrane bio-reactor (MBR) for elimination of different physical, chemical and biological contaminants to make the wastewater suitable for irrigation purpose. The worldwide application of MBR suggested that this modern membrane filtration technique alone performed satisfactory for removal of all physical (Total suspended solids, Turbidity), chemical (BOD, COD) and biological (Faecal coliform) impurities from municipal wastewater.