Granular Activated Carbon Membrane Bioreactor Advances Treatment Technology For Reuse Of Refinery Wastewater

Saudi Aramco has adopted a policy of minimizing its extraction of groundwater and the use (and associated expense) of desalinated seawater for process water use. As an alternative, they are actively investigating sustainable methods and technologies that will allow wastewater reuse, either as cooling water makeup and/or boiler feed water. Typically, reverse osmosis treatment of biologically treated effluent is required for reuse, however this leads to excessive organic fouling of reverse osmosis membranes due to recalcitrant COD remaining in the treated effluent.

Saudi Aramco approached Siemens with the concept of jointly evaluating the use of granular activated carbon in a membrane bioreactor (MBR) to achieve an effluent quality suitable for wastewater reuse. This new technology - marketed and sold under the name EcoRight® - is a Siemens/ Saudi Aramco joint technology development that relies on Siemens’ Petro® MBR technology, modified to allow the aeration tank mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) to operate with suspended granular activated carbon (GAC). This unique technology offers significant advantages over conventional biological treatment technologies, including conventional powdered activated carbon-assisted biological treatment technologies.