Abstract:
Environmental awareness among the people of several well developed and developing
countries have forced the various governments to continuously evolve and implement
stringent effluent standards for disposal. Hence, newer technologies like the
application of membrane separation (micro or ultra filtration) technique coupled with
biological processes (known as membrane bioreactor – MBR) were developed, having
several distinct advantages over the conventional treatment process/(es). The last
decade witnessed a tremendous growth in the use of MBR. However, critical review of
literature has revealed that the MBR technology is very scarcely used for the treatment
of recalcitrant nature of effluent (ie., pharmaceutical wastewater). Hence, in this study
an industrial pharmaceutical wastewater was considered for treatment using a
(submerged) membrane bioreactor.
