Abstract Membrane bioreactor (MBR) has been proven to be an efficient technology capable of treating various industrial effluents. However, the evaluation of its performances in the case of olive mill wastewater (OMW) over a conventional activated sludge (CAS) have not been determined yet. The present study aims to compare OMW treatment in two laboratory scale pilots: an external ceramic MBR and CAS starting with an acclimation step in both reactors by raising OMW concentration progressively. After the acclimation step, the reactors received OMW at 2 gCOD/L with respect to an organic loading rate of 0.2 and 0.3 kgCOD/kgMLVSS/d for MBR and CAS, respectively. Biomass acclimation occurred successfully in both systems; however, the MBR tolerated more OMW toxicity than CAS as the MBR always maintained an effluent with a better quality. At a stable state, a higher reduction of 95% chemical oxygen demand (COD) was obtained with MBR compared to CAS (86%), but both succeeded in polyphenols removal (80%). Moreover, a higher MLSS elimination from the MBR treated water (97%) was measured against 88% for CAS. Therefore, CAS was suitable for OMW treatment and MBR could be proposed as an alternative to CAS when a better quality of treated water is required.

中文翻译：

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橄榄厂废水处理好氧工艺比较

摘要膜生物反应器（MBR）已被证明是一种能够处理各种工业废水的高效技术。然而，目前尚未确定其在橄榄厂废水 (OMW) 和传统活性污泥 (CAS) 方面的性能评估。本研究旨在比较两个实验室规模试点中的 OMW 处理：外部陶瓷 MBR 和 CAS，从两个反应器中的驯化步骤开始，逐步提高 OMW 浓度。适应步骤后，MBR 和 CAS 的反应器分别接收 2 gCOD/L 的 OMW，有机负载率为 0.2 kgCOD/kgMLVSS/d 和 0.3 kgCOD/kgMLVSS/d。两个系统都成功地进行了生物质驯化；然而，MBR 比 CAS 能耐受更多的 OMW 毒性，因为 MBR 始终保持出水质量更好。在稳定状态下，与 CAS (86%) 相比，MBR 的化学需氧量 (COD) 降低了 95%，但两者都成功去除了多酚 (80%)。此外，经测量，MBR 处理水中的 MLSS 消除率更高 (97%)，而 CAS 的 MLSS 消除率为 88%。因此，CAS适合OMW处理，当需要更好的处理水质量时，可以建议MBR作为CAS的替代品。