Malting wastewater biorefinery for energy recovery, solids reduction and water reuse

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The matling process generates a large amount of wastewater that contains a medium to high strength of COD/BOD and nutrient (P) and a high solids content at psychrophilic temperatures. Currently, this stream of wastewater from the Thunder Bay plant of Canada Malting Co. is discharged into the municipal wastewater system for aerobic treatment, which is costly to the company and increases the organic loading stress of the municipal wastewater treatment system. With a target of "3R" (recycle, reduce and reuse), it is desirable to develop new technology, particularly anaerobic technology, for energy and nutrients recovery and water reuse. The anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) technology being developed at Lakehead University provides an excellent opportunity for the treatment of this stream of wastewater. The proposed study will test the feasibility of the AnMBR technology for malting wastewater treatment, which has never been tested before, and obtain engineering information for process design and economic analysis of this novel technology, in addition the to the development of an improved fundamental understanding of membrane fouling in AnMBR with this stream of wastewater. It is anticipated that the technology developed from this study can be applied to other brewery industry wastewater treatments as well.