Aquabiotec Engineering SARL

Membrane Bioreactor (MBR)

The Membrane Bioreactor Process (MBR) is a well developed and proven technology. Membrane materials and module systems have been developed continuously within the last years.

Several installations have been built for municipal and industrial applications, but only few full scale MBR plants are in operation in pulp and paper mills. The available technical MBR systems using either low pressure submerged membranes or classical horizontal cross flow tubular modules or as a new development aerated vertical cross flow tubular modules.

The advantages of the MBR process, which as a single stage process has to be compared to aerobic two stage processes are smaller bioreactor volume (due to higher biomass concentrations) and no secondary clarifier due to the membranes retaining the activated biomass. The MBR therefore needs much less area compared to a standard aerobic system.