In this study, we applied a membrane distillation process to investigate a feasibility of treating a wastewater with high concentration of organic matters including nitrogen and phosphorus. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of 0.22 μm and porosity of 75%. The installation was direct contact type where the temperature difference between a feed and permeate side was controlled to have a range from 20 to 60°C. We observed a flux variation and a concentration changes of COD, PO4 3--P, NH4 + -N and conductivity of feed side as well as permeate side with various temperature differences (20 to 60°C), cross flow velocities (0.09 to 0.27 m/s) through the module, and pH (6.6 to 12.0) of the feed that has the initial concentration of COD about 1,000 mg/L, total nitrogen 390 mg/L, total phosphorus 10 mg/L, conductivity of 7,000 μs/cm. The results showed that the average flux was ranged from 4 to 40 L/m2/hr which was almost similar with the flux of NaCl and deionized water used as a feed solution. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the temperature difference of 20°C and cross flow velocity of 0.09 m/s while the highest one was measured with 60°C and 0.27 m/s. Above 99% of COD and PO4 3- -P in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. However, the removal rate of ammonium nitrogen was varied from 64 to 99% depending on the pH of feed solution.
This study was conducted to investigate the biological treatment capability of MMCMAS(Movinig Media Complete Mixing Activated Sludge) reactor for high strength organic wastewater (Average BOD=800㎎/ℓ). And this experimental results were compared previous study for low strength organic wastewater (Average BOD=150㎎/ℓ) by the same reactor. In this study, we abtained following conclusions ;
(1) The laboratory MMCMAS reactor demonstrated that SBOD removal efficiencies of more than 90% can be achieved at organic loading rates of 30.9 gBOD/㎡/d for high strength organic wastewater and 39.4 gBOD/㎡/d for low strength organic wastewater, respectively.
(2) The nitrification rates of MMCMAS reactor was found same results of similiar organic loading rates.
(3) The ratio of attached biomass to total biomass on the moving media varied in the range of 40 to 63% and 32 to 94% for high and low strength organic wastewater, respetively. And it was varied at the various concentration of influents for the similiar organic loading rates. The sludge production rates was found approximately 0.37 gVSS/gBODrem. in MMCMAS reactor.