Performance of a submerged membrane bioreactor for wastewater mimicking fish meal processing effluent

The objective of this work was to analyze organic matter removal, nitrification, biomass growth and membrane fouling in a submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor, fed with synthetic wastewater, of similar composition to the effluents generated in a fish meal industry. After biomass acclimatization with saline conditions of 12 gNaCl/L and COD/N ratio of 15 in the bioreactor, results showed that the organic matter removal was higher than 90%, for all organic loading rates (0.8, 1, 1.33 and 2 gCOD/L∙d) and nitrogen loading rates (0.053, 0.067, 0.089 and 0.133 gN/L∙d) tested during the study. However, nitrification was only carried out with the lowest OLR (0.8 gCOD/L∙d) and NLR (0.053 gN/L∙d). An excessive concentration of organic matter in the wastewater appears as a limiting factor to this process\'operating conditions, where nitrification values of 65% were reached, including nitrogen assimilation to produce biomass. The analysis of membrane fouling showed that the bio-cake formation at the membrane surface is the most impacting mechanism responsible of this phenomenon and it was demonstrated that organic and nitrogen loading rates variations affected membrane fouling rate.