Treatment of Oil Polluted Industrial Wastewater in a Sequence Batch Membrane Bioreactor

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is a combination of one bioreactor system and one membrane system. Membrane bioreactors (MBR) have been widely used in wastewater treatment that requires high effluent quality, due to their important advantages over traditional technologies. In this research, the microorganisms with the ability to withstand in an environment with high salinity and oil were isolated from heavy crude oil in the south of Iran and biodegradation of oil pollutants studied. The adapted bacteria were cultivated later in the feed tank of a submerged hollow fiber MBR and biodegradation of oil polluted industrial wastewater with COD concentration of (700-3000mg/l) and MLSS concentration (4200–14000mg/l) have been studied.The obtained results suggested that the existing membrane bioreactor have high performance in crude oil contaminated wastewater treatment, considering its microorganisms, environmental conditions (pH=6.7-8), temperature (28-30°C), high salinity (close to sea’s level) and removal efficiency (80-93%).