Abstract
In order to decrease the high costs of membrane process, we have tried to develop two alternatives to membrane; a cartridge type filter and a metal membrane were tested for the high permeation flux with low cost and low energy. This research mainly focused on three points; 1) operation with high permeation flux by using of a cartridge type filter and a metal membrane, 2) removals of the filterable organic materials (FOC) by pretreatments for the membrane fouling control, and 3) advanced wastewater treatment by SMBR process with intermittent aeration and high MLSS. An Intermittently aerated membrane bioreactor using a submerged micro filter (cartridge type) was applied in laboratory scale for the advanced wastewater treatment. To minimize membrane fouling, intermittent aeration was applied inside of the filter with $3.0kg_f/cm^2$. The experiments was conducted for 6 months with three different HRTs (8, 10, 12 hr) and high MLSS of 6,000 and 10,000mg/L. The filtration process could be operated up to 50 days with permeation flux of 500LMH. Regardless of the operating conditions, more than 95% of COD, BOD and SS were removed. Fast and complete nitrification was accomplished, and denitrification was appeared to be the rate-limiting step. More than 75% T-N could be removed due to the endogenous denitrification. T-P removal efficiency was increased to 80% under the condition of MLSS 10,000mg/L.