4th post: Membrane Reactor!

It’s finally here! With a rather long searching process we found a collaborator who agreed to design and build the reactor we needed. The membrane tube selection was another time consuming task as we wanted to find the best (and cheapest) possible choice. Practically we decided to continue using the familiar membranes from previous phases, as the other options were not robust enough to withstand the conditions of our process (pH difference of 10+ over the membrane).

The membrane reactor was built by Teollisuuden Vesi oy. After the initial contact with their engineers, the process has been smooth as the design dialogue was easygoing and both parties understood what the main objective was. Now the reactor is much improved over the old one:

Increase:

volume: 2 l -> 300 l
membrane surface area: 0,15 m2 -> 18 m2
surface area / volume ratio: 15 -> 60

Now we can start testing it, and there are tests planned with WWTP digester reject water, a biogas plant reject water and separately collected urine.