Single household greywater treatment with a moving bed biofilm membrane reactor (MBBMR)

A combination of moving bed biofilm reactor and membrane filtration (MBBMR) was studied for on-site greywater treatment for a single household with four inhabitants over 10 months. Synthetic greywater with different loading and varying ambient temperatures was part of the study. Although different stress situations were applied, the results of the treated effluent achieved NSF (International Standard/American National Standard) reuse guidelines. Mean flux of the membrane during permeating phase was 12.9 L/m2 h. Additionally, natural hair colour could be removed by almost 80% and energy consumption of the pilot unit was optimized during the operation to less than 1.3 kW h/m3. The process configuration proved to be feasible for the implementation on on-site microsystems with high flow and load variation.