Survey of MBR market: Trends and perspectives in China Original Research Article

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) has gained considerable attention for wastewater treatment and reuse in China in the last two decades. Comparing with the global MBR market, which has an average annual growth rate of 10.9%, the average annual growth rate in China is nearly 100% in recent years. In the past 10 years, publications on MBR researches and applications for wastewater treatment have increased sharply. Over three hundred MBR plants have been successfully applied into practice for different wastewater treatments, such as municipal wastewater, bathing wastewater, restaurant wastewater, landfill leachate, hospital wastewater, petrochemical wastewater and high-concentration industrial wastewater. These plants have capacities ranging from 10 to 100,000 m3/d, among which over 12 MBR plants have capacities exceeding 10,000 m3/d. The largest MBR plant, i.e. Beijing Kunyu River WWPT, which has a capacity of 100,000 m3/d for municipal wastewater treatment and reuse, was constructed in Beijing by Origin Water Technology Co., Ltd. The largest MBR plant for industrial wastewater treatment was located in Tianjin and installed by Motimo Membrane Inc., which has a capacity of 30,000 m3/d. The largest MBR application for industrial sectors was petrochemical wastewater treatment, and over ten MBR plants each exceed a capacity of 5000 m3/d. In South-east China, the constructed MBRs are mostly involved in the high-strength industrial wastewater treatment while in North China MBRs mainly focused on municipal wastewater treatment and reuse.