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

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.