Articles - Leather Technology Magazine Nº80
Wolfram Scholz1, Nicki Taylor2 and Keith Hill2
1 W2O Environment Ltd, 58 Cecil Rd., Queen’s Park, Northampton, NN2 6PQ, United
Kingdom wolfram@w2oenvironment.net
Tel/FAX: 44 1604 478 415
2 Simona Tanning Inc. Simona Tanning Inc., Xin Hu Industry Developing area, Maan
Town, Huixhen District, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, China 516257
keith.hill@simonatanning.com
Tel: 86 139 283 11 979
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Submerged membrane bioreactor and reverse osmosis
technology for tannery effluent treatment and water
recycling
Keywords: Membrane Bioreactor, MBR, Reverse Osmosis, RO, tannery water recycling.
ABSTRACT
The combination of Membrane bioreactor (MBR) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) treatment
has shown to be highly effective in the removal of organic pollutants and salts from
tannery effluent providing for high quality water recycling.
Membrane bioreactors combine an activated sludge process with membrane
Ultrafiltration to facilitate complete retention of the biomass. This combination results in
high biomass concentrations leading to an increased removal of organic pollutants and
suspended solids from tannery effluent. The MBR permeate is then polished with Reverse
Osmosis membranes to remove salts, which enables high quality water re-use for leather
processing. Recycling RO water for leather processing gives excellent results without
causing any detrimental effects on leather quality. This combination of MBR and RO
technology shows to be a technical and economical feasible option for effluent treatment
and high quality water recycling. An average reduction of 89% COD and 96% BOD and
a stable membrane performance was achieved. The effluent quality complies with the
Chinese discharge consents for tannery effluents.
Simona Tanning Inc is a pioneer in implementing this novel hybrid concept of MBR
and Reverse Osmosis. The Chinese tannery is retanning bovine leather processing up
to finished product for high performance and specialized leathers for the shoe business.
Simona Tanning is giving a special emphasis to environmental protection and safety and
is very innovative in respect of new environmental techniques. W2O Environment has
assisted Simona Tanning in the successful implementation of MBR and RO technology,
which is one of the first industrial scale applications of it’s kind in Asian tanneries.
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