Treatment of Synthetic Olefin Plant Wastewater at Various Salt Concentrations in a Membrane Bioreactor

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of salt concentration on performance of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) for treating an olefin plant wastewater. For this purpose, a lab‐scale submerged MBR with a flat‐sheet ultrafiltration membrane was used for treatment of synthetic wastewater according to oxidation and neutralization unit of olefin plant. The synthetic wastewater was adjusted to have 500 mg/L chemical oxygen demand (COD). Trials on different concentrations of sodium sulfate (Na₂SO₄) (0–20 000 ppm) in the feed were conducted under aerobic conditions in the MBR. The results showed that increasing the salt concentrations causes an increase in the effluent COD, phenol, and oil concentrations. These results are due to reduction of the membrane filtration efficiency and also decline in the microbial activity that it is indicated by decreasing the sOUR in MBR. But in all the trials, the effluent COD and oil concentration was well within the local discharge limit of 100 and 10 mg/L, respectively. These results indicate that the MBR system is highly efficient for treating the olefin plant wastewater, and although high salt concentrations decreased organic contaminant removal rates in the MBR, the effluent still met the discharge limits for treating the olefin plant wastewater.