Thesis Title:  «Municipal and dairy wastewater treatment by using utrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes, for COD removal»

Wednesday 25 September 2019, at: 15:00, Venue: Hall Κ3.A17

Examination Committee

• Associate Professor Petros Gikas (advisor)
• Professor George Karatzas
• Associate Professor Danae Venieri

Abstract

The aim of the present thesis was to investigate the application of membrane technology in synthetic municipal and industrial wastewater treatment.

This thesis was a part of a research effort to determine the affectivity of a membrane filtration process, in order to substitute processes in both primary and secondary wastewater treatment.

A series of experiments was performed focusing on Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal, by using Utrafiltration and Nanofiltration membranes in synthetic municipal and industrial wastewater.

Four experiments were conducted: ultrafiltration of synthetic municipal wastewater, nanofiltration of synthetic municipal wastewater, ultrafiltration of synthetic industrial wastewater and nanofiltration of synthetic industrial wastewater. In each experiment, the pressure was gradually increased while the measurements were recorded, in order to construct the flow-pressure diagram until the flow curve was stabilized. The experiments have led to the conclusion that the volume of municipal wastewater that can be treated, under constant pressure, is twice the volume of industrial wastewater. That leads to lower operating cost, because of the smaller membrane surface area required. Regarding COD retention rate, it was proven that nanofiltration is the only effective process for municipal wastewater treatment, while industrial wastewater can be treated with both types of membranes, but nanofiltration membrane was proven to be more effective.

In this thesis, besides the experimental procedure, a detailed description of municipal and industrial wastewater characteristics and membrane processing applications, as presented in the literature, are included.