Research on degradation product and reaction kinetics of membrane electro-bioreactor (MEBR) with catalytic electrodes for high concentration phenol wastewater treatment

•We used a novel device called membrane eletro-bioreactor (MEBR).•Dealed with high concentration phenol wastewater.•Efficiency of MEBR was 11.1% higher than the sum of MBR and Electrocatalytic.•Found a new degradation product—2,6-di-tert-butyl-p-benzoquinone.

The membrane electro-bioreactor (MEBR) is a novel technology, it treats wastewater by combining membrane filtration, electrokinetic phenomena, and biological processes in one reactor. This paper aims to deal with hard biodegradation and high concentration phenol wastewater. Investigating the influence factors such as initial concentration, voltage, pH value, temperature and mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) toward phenol degradation process in electrocatalytic process and membrane bioreactor (MBR), and then apply the optimum conditions in the MEBR system. Results of continuous flow experiments demonstrated that MEBR increased the quality of the treated wastewater than conventional MBR. The above technics followed the zero-order reaction kinetics. The removal efficiency of MEBR was about 11.1% higher for phenol than the sum of the two individual processes. With the help of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS), this qualitative analysis looks at the degradation products of phenol generated in MEBR, through which 2,6-di-tert-butyl-p-benzoquinone was confirmed as the main degradation product.

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