Utilization of reverse osmosis (RO) for reuse of MBR-treated wastewater in irrigation-preliminary tests and quality analysis of product water

WOS: 000425008900005PubMed ID: 25689918Membrane bioreactor (MBR) effluent collected from a wastewater treatment plant installed at an industrial zone was used for reverse osmosis (RO) membrane tests in the laboratory. For this, two different GE Osmonics RO membranes (AK-BWRO and AD-SWRO) were employed. The results showed that AK-brackish water reverse osmosis (AK-BWRO) and AD-seawater reverse osmosis (AD-SWRO) membranes have almost similar rejection performances regarding analyzed parameters such as conductivity, salinity, color, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total organic carbon (TOC). On the other hand, these membranes behaved quite differently considering their permeate water flux at the same applied pressure of 10 bar. AD-SWRO membrane was also tested at 20 bar. The results revealed that AD-SWRO membrane had almost the same rejections either at 10 or at 20 bar of applied pressure. Compared with irrigation water standards, AK-BWRO and AD-SWRO gave an effluent with low salinity value and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) which makes it unsuitable for irrigation due to the infiltration problems risi0ng from unbalanced values of salinity and SAR. Combination of MBR effluent and RO effluent at respective proportions of 0.3:0.7 and 0.4:0.6 for AK-BWRO and AD-SWRO, respectively, are the optimum mixing ratios to overcome the infiltration hazard problem. Choice of less-sensitive crops to chloride and sodium ions is another strategy to overcome all hazards which may arise from above suggested mixing proportions.Ege University Scientific Research ProjectEge University [EU-2012 MUH 035]This work was partly supported by Ege University Scientific Research Project (EU-2012 MUH 035). We thank ITOB-OSB for the kind support to obtain wastewater samples treated with MBR system and to give a 3-week period of training for S. Bunani, E. Yorukoglu, and G. Sert in the wastewater treatment plant of ITOB-OSB. We thank M. Akcay for AAS analyses and G. Serin for TOC analyses