Memthane and Biobed wastewater treatment processes

Saying that Anaerobic technology plays a key role in using wastewater as a resource by combining the treatment of production effluents with the generation of biogas and the potential for recovering nutrients, thus reducing the environmental impact, Biothane, the anaerobic technology centre of the Veolia Group, has announced developing Memthane and Biobed Advanced – two new processes to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of anaerobic wastewater treatment.

Veolia lists the following product features and benefits:

Memthane

• It is an Anaerobic Membrane Bio-Reactor (AnMBR) which treats high-strength waste streams previously considered economically untreatable through traditional wastewater processes.
• It combines two technologies with proven track records: Biothane’s anaerobic biological wastewater treatment and Pentair X-Flow’s ultrafiltration (UF) membrane separation process.
• It maximises COD and TSS removal and produces a high-quality effluent that can be reused or discharged directly to sewer while generating methane-rich biogas for even greater energy savings.
• It thus opens the door to treating high-strength wastes found in industries, such as distilleries and dairies, offering a solution for streams with a COD of 15,000 to 250,000 ppm, stillage type streams, as well as fat, oil and grease (FOG) containing streams.
• The green energy source offers the possibility of making production plants energy self-sufficient thus reducing the carbon footprint as well as the dependency on costly external fossil fuels.
• The suspended free effluent can also facilitate easy recovery of nutrients for fertiliser production.
• The simple, fully automated reactor system is easy to operate and odour-free.

 Biobed Advanced

• It is an anaerobic wastewater treatment solution using granular sludge, where the pre-treated effluent passes a dense and anaerobic granular biomass bed where the COD load present in the wastewater is converted into biogas.
• The Biobed Advanced reactor combines the high COD breakdown efficiency and the ease of maintaining and producing anaerobic granular sludge of a conventional UASB reactor (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket) with the cost-effectiveness of a high-loaded system, like the Biobed EGSB (Expanded Granular Sludge Bed).
• It keeps the biomass in the reactor and provides a better and more stable performance with a lower footprint, thus optimising investment and operating costs.
• The biogas produced in the process can serve as a source of energy for the production site.
• Thanks to its novel and compact design, it reduces the reactor height and investment costs.