Singapore MBR Testing Facility

The testing facility incorporates the Siemens MBR system, a unique wastewater treatment process that combines activated sludge biological treatment with Memcor membrane filtration system. The system generates rapid pulses at each MBR module using a continuous air flow. This pulsed airlift technology increases scouring effectiveness and reduces energy consumption. System benefits include: decreased operating and maintenance costs, and increased ease of use, as there are no moving parts in the membrane air scour process; 30-50% reduction in air scour energy use; and ease of retrofitting to existing systems.

This MBR research and development program allows the project team to test the membrane operating system (MOS) of the pulsed airlift technology and optimize performance under extreme and normal operating environments. The full-scale plant allows testing to take place in a carefully controlled and monitored environment. The expected result is improvements in overall lower energy use and system maintenance for MBRs. The program is based on detailed Computational Flow Dynamics (CFD) analysis carried out over the last two years, which is a result of a close collaboration between the Siemens Water Technologies R&D Center and the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) in Singapore.