Comparative kinetics of hybrid and pure moving bed reactor-membrane bioreactors

The moving bed biofilm reactor-membrane bioreactor (MBBR-MBR) is a novel solution to conventional processes. In this study, a conventional membrane bioreactor (MBR), a hybrid MBBR-MBR and a pure MBBR-MBR were compared. The hybrid MBBR-MBR contained suspended and attached biomass, while the pure MBBR-MBR mainly had attached biomass. The reactors operated with a hydraulic retention time of 9.5 h. The pure MBBR-MBR had the highest efficiency of nitrogen removal with a value of 71.91 ± 16.04%. As a whole, the pure MBBR-MBR showed the best performance from the point of view of the kinetics of the heterotrophic and autotrophic biomass with values of μm,H = 0.018 h−1, μm,A = 0.751 h−1, KM = 2.679 mg O2 L−1 and KNH = 2.191 mg N L−1. The presence of the attached biomass improved the organic matter and nitrogen removal in a pure MBBR-MBR system.