Comparison of Cas, Mbr, Sbr, and Biolak treatment systems in the removal of Bod and Cod from municipal wastewater

The progressive importance of wastewater treatment and water reclamation due to the limited nature of freshwater resources and growing demand for clean water makes a practical assessment of different treatment technologies essential to engineers. This study aims to provide an evaluation of the performance of activated sludge, membrane bioreactor, sequencing batch reactor, and Biolak treatment systems in removing BOD5 and COD from municipal wastewater. An independent pilot for each treatment system was constructed and set up at the Ekbatan wastewater treatment plant in Tehran. An extensive set of tests were performed on the effluent of the pilots under controlled operating conditions to evaluate the performance of each process. The study was conducted over a period of one year. It was found that while the CAS and Biolak pilots reached results in accordance with treatment standards, the highest water quality was achieved by the MBR and SBR pilots. Furthermore, the SBR and MBR pilots reached the maximum BOD5 and COD removal efficiencies, respectively. Finally, it was concluded that high efficiency in conjunction with qualitative advantages such as low land occupation and easy retrofit of old plants makes SBR and MBR technologies among the most viable options for municipal wastewater treatment.