THREE YEARS OF FULL-SCALE TREATMENT OF AN OILY WASTEWATER USING AN IMMERSED MEMBRANE BIOLOGICAL REACTOR

Medium strength petroleum-based organic and metal compounds are generally present in wastewater from Marathon Petroleum Company's (MPC) barge cleaning and repair terminal operations. With the advent of more restrictive pretreatment standards from the POTW and categorical standards from the USEPA, it became evident that alternative treatment techniques to the facility's conventional dissolved air flotation system were required.This presentation will review the pilot work that was conducted on an immersed membrane biological reactor (MBR) system, using a prototype of commercially available equipment. The MBR testing results demonstrated that the primary target compounds (BOD5, COD, TSS, BTEX and oil and grease) and metals (arsenic, lead, mercury and zinc) were removed at rates of 85 to 99 percent and were within local discharge limitations.The featured work will be the subsequent full-scale design, construction, seeding and acclimation, start-up and post start-up operation of the MBR system at MPC's Marine Repair Terminal located in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. The system's implementation established the following:Appropriate design parameters (organic loading rate and hydraulic retention time).Performance during steady-state operation and shock (spiked) loading events.Steady-state and shock loading oxygen and nutrient utilization rates.Water reuse potential of MBR effluent treated by fixed bed adsorption filters.This presentation will offer perspective on the treatment of petroleum-based organic and metalcontaining medium-strength waters via the innovative immersed MBR technology; this will be based on demonstrated technical feasibility, high operational reliability and unique load-variant flexibility of the system.