Industrial water treatment and resource recovery using anti-fouling membrane system for brewery wastewater

The increasing popularity of craft beer has resulted in the expansion of medium to large brewing facilities in the US. One challenge with such expansion is the management of significantly high levels of total solids (TSS) and high biological oxygen demand (BOD) in the wastewater generated from brewing process, such as high temperature trub waste. Many publicly owned treatment works impose penalties for TSS and BOD, and since there is no effective way of treating such streams, many breweries pay penalties or haul away the waste at high cost. A new innovative anti-fouling membrane system based on vortex generation has been tested to treat these high solid wastes from the brewing process. Typical membranes not only have significant fouling issues with these high solid wastes, but also a reduction in temperature is needed to protect the membrane elements. The anti-fouling mechanism enables the system to process total solids from 1-10% or more, as well as the temperatures of up to 200°F (95°C). Also, the proposed membrane filtration system can remove greater than 99% of the solids to significantly reduce treatment and/or haul away costs.