The investigation of Balıkesir Organized Industrial Zone wastewater treatment in a jet loop membrane bioreactor system

Wastewater obtained from Organized Industrial Zones (OIZ), due to the presence of a number of various industrial facilities, is extremely complex. Moreover, depending on the characteristics of the facilities within the OIZ, the wastewater not only contains a high concentration of organic matter (approximately 3000 mg COD/L), but also shows a toxic structure due to the chemical waste mixture. Therefore, Organized Industrial Zones (OIZ) include long flow charts in treatment plant selections. Generally, treatment plant flow charts are applied; where physical, chemical and biological treatments are situated. Besides water recovery is extremely important for OIZ's as they accommodate regions or facilities with high water consumption. Choosing membrane units for wastewater treatment is quite necessary in terms of high performance and possibility to reuse or recovery of the effluent water. However, since the biodegradability of organic matter in an OIZ wastewater may be poor, choosing high-performance reactors such as jet loop bioreactors instead of conventional bioreactors allows obtaining a high quality effluent in much smaller areas and at lower costs. In this study, Balıkesir OIZ wastewater treatment was investigated in Jet Loop Membrane Bioreactor (JLMBR) established in the laboratory. From the JLMBR system built with a ceramic membrane operated in cross flow mode, a treatment efficiency of 98% was achieved under 7.5 kg COD/m3.day loading during a holding period of approximately 4 hours. The MLSS concentration in the system increased up to 7.9 mg/L. The system allows to increase the sludge age and thus reduces the sludge treatment cost. Considering that the installed facility was built having a 24-hour waiting period, it was observed that the treatment performance of a rather small facility has been extremely efficient.