| dc.description.abstract | Access to water has become one of the main challenges of modern
society due to the growing imbalance between the demand and availability
of water resources. Studies carried out so far on wastewater treatment have
greatly improved the quality of purified water and discharged into water
bodies and, at the same time, minimizing the risks to human health and the
aquatic environment.
More stringent regulations on the quality of wastewater, with the
scarcity of water resources, have determined over the years the development
of advanced water treatments in order to ensure compliance with the limits
to discharge into the receiving water body and, at the same time, make it
possible to reuse the water treated.
Among the significant innovations, membrane bioreactors (MBR),
being characterized by significant advantages over conventional activated
sludge processes (CAS) thanks to the combination of biological processes
with membrane filtration systems, are finding more and more application for
the treatment of wastewater. The biological unit of the MBR reactors allows
the biodegradation of contaminants while the filtering membranes,
integrated in it, allow the physical separation of the treated water from the
biomass. Therefore, in addition to high removal efficiencies, substantially
disinfected high quality effluent and reduced sludge production, these
reactors have the advantage of significantly reducing space and, therefore,
the required overall dimensions.
Despite these advantages, the rapid fouling of the membranes, defined
with the term fouling, and the high investment costs of the membranes still
limit the widespread use of the technology on a large scale. ... [edited by Author] | it_IT |
