New System for Solids Separation

Currently, MBRs are a combination of the activated sludge process and ultrafiltration. It's chief advantage is that as the bacterial sludge will be filtered out by the UF system, there will be no requirement for secondary settling tanks and such. Creating an anerobic MBR is theoretically possible, but three factors must be taken into account.

1. An anerobic process is very slow; what takes an aerobic process only hours to carry out, an anerobic process may take days.

2. Anerobic systems produce methane gas. A designer should take this fact into account when selecting his vacuum pump.

3. Anerobic processes themselves are incomplete, with a lot of toxic byproducts still dissolved in the water. Aerobic treatment is still required to oxidize and remove these toxic byproducts from the water before it can be discharged.