Water Science & Technology—WST Vol 57 No 11 pp 1805–1808 © IWA Publishing 2008 doi:10.2166/wst.2008.239

Membrane bioreactors as core technology for water loop closure in a maltery

Heleen De Wever, Wesley Boënne, Michel Danau, N. Vanderspiegel, Kris Lambert, Koen Hardy and Jan Limbos

This paper reports on the potential for water reuse in the malting sector. Core unit of a treatment train to close the water loop was a membrane bioreactor (MBR). Three different commercial submerged membranes were compared in terms of their fouling potential in this application. In a second step, MBR permeate was subjected to reverse osmosis (RO) and several oxidation processes. Neither the MBR permeate nor the RO permeate or oxidized water streams showed an adverse effect on malt quality. The worst case scenario was then tested in a closed water loop over several malting cycles at pilot scale and the effect on water and malt quality investigated.

Keywords: closed water loop; maltery; membrane bioreactor

Full article (PDF Format)