India membrane bioreactor market is
anticipated to grow at a high CAGR in the forecast period due to the rising
wastewater production in offices, industries, and households, which is expected
to drive the demand for wastewater management, thereby accompanying market
growth over the forecast period.
Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is
mainly a term used to define wastewater treatment procedures. It is the
integration of a membrane process, such as ultrafiltration or microfiltration,
with an activated sludge procedure, a biological wastewater treatment. It is
extensively utilized for industrial and municipal wastewater treatment.
Gravity-driven or vacuum and pressure-driven systems are the two common types
of membrane bioreactor systems. Gravity-driven or vacuum bioreactors are
immersed and usually used in a flat sheet or hollow fibre membranes, which are
then installed in either the bioreactors or subsequent membrane tanks.
Pressure-driven systems are in-pipe cartridge systems situated on the exterior
of the bioreactor.
India Membrane Bioreactor Market:
Drivers & Trends
Growing Demand for High-Quality
Effluents:
In India, several industries are
witnessing growth due to the rise in population. There is a need for excess
water and high effluent quality with appropriate treatment technologies. These
two vital requirements can be accomplished with the help of a membrane
bioreactor (MBR), proven to be effective in eradicating organic and inorganic
matter.
MBR is a fast-growing technology,
and it is gradually being used for industrial and municipal wastewater
treatment applications across the country. These systems offer high-quality
effluents due to the efficient elimination of numerous pollutants, including
micropollutants present in wastewater. Membrane bioreactors can be used as
influents for reverse osmosis and nanofiltration processes.
A membrane bioreactor can
generate effluent of higher quality in terms of nutrients, organic matter, and
suspended particles. To meet more stringent wastewater discharge regulations,
filtering may not be necessary because of the minimal and consistent TSS
content in the membrane bioreactor effluent. Other crucial measurements,
including the five-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5), the chemical oxygen
demand (COD), the total nitrogen (TN), and the total phosphorus (TP), did
reveal substantial differences across methods, making MBR the ideal method for
treating wastewater. With the use of membrane bioreactors, most of the
contamination in wastewater can be eliminated from the effluent. Moreover, the
effluent achieves most of the quality requirements specified by international
guidelines and regulations for water reuse and reclamation.
Typically, longer solids
retention time (SRT) results in increasing wastewater efficiency. During the
treatment, the applicability of longer SRT in membrane bioreactors provides
higher effluent quality. Membrane bioreactors involve the generation of
high-quality treated effluents owing to the presence of a membrane with a pore
size smaller than suspended solids. However, for effective secondary
clarifiers, the usual suspended solids (SSs) concentration is about 5mg/L,
thereby eliminating the necessity for tertiary treatment such as filters in
MBR.
Increasing MBR Installations due
to the Growing Urbanization:
Urbanisation refers to the
increase in the population of cities. Currently, more than 30% of Indians
live in urban regions, which are expected to generate 34% of the nation's GDP
by 2030. The rapid expansion of the economy, together with the acceleration
of urbanisation and industrialization, has increased concern over the water
quality. Urban population expansion has a tremendous influence on water
quality. Additionally, it is anticipated that the growing number of businesses
that release pollutants would raise significant demand for membrane bioreactors
for water treatment. Thus, it is projected that because of urbanisation and
growing consumer awareness, there would be a rise in demand for membrane
bioreactors.
Due to population expansion,
growing urbanisation has an impact on the environment by reducing the
availability of resources. Because of the pollution and the crowded living
circumstances, it has negative health effects. Due to industrial pollution and
other factors, water quality in metropolitan areas is also poor. Consuming
clean water has therefore become the primary goal in metropolitan areas,
increasing the demand for membrane bioreactors. The market for membrane
bioreactor water treatment systems is anticipated to increase as people become
more aware of the negative impacts of polluted water.
Energy and water use have
increased nationwide because of urbanisation. Membrane bioreactor installation
rises because of the requirement to limit the effluent emission into water
bodies in response to rising power plant output. Following this, the market for
membrane bioreactors in India is anticipated to experience rapid expansion in
the future.
Advances In MBR Technology:
Due to their generally higher
efficiency for solid-liquid separation than that of a secondary sedimentation
tank, MBRs, an advanced combination of biological process and membrane
technology, have been revealing great advantages over the conventional
activated sludge (CAS) procedure for wastewater treatment.
In the modern era, innovation in
water treatment technology has transformed the progress of MBR technology. The
low efficiency, large space requirement, and increased cost of the conventional
activated sludge procedure have given the required space for the MBR system to
come into action. The traditional activated sludge (CAS) process and tertiary
filtration can be replaced by immersed and side stream MBR. MBR has simpler
operational management, better permeate quality, and a reduced footprint
requirement when compared with CAS. Therefore, MBR can be an efficient tool for
sustainable water treatment.
MBR technology plays a vital role
in wastewater and reuse applications, both domestically and internationally.
Over the past ten years, technological advances have brought down the MBR cost
significantly by making the wastewater treatment process more effective and
efficient. MBRs are a versatile treatment platform, from retrofits to
decentralized plants, that can help transform wastewater into a viable
resource. Technological advances and developments have made MBRs both the
investment for wastewater treatment and reuse and the best available technology
(BAT).
MBRs are less expensive to
operate than traditional plants, with 50% fewer unit operations. Reuse
applications, mainly potable reuse, need a higher level of treatment at a
reasonable cost to be viable. As it is the cheapest and most effective
technology to reach reuse quality standards, MBRs will play a crucial role in
developing the reuse market. MBR effectively and efficiently provide high
removal rates of BOD, solids, and nutrients, all required for today’s reuse
needs. MBR also offers the ideal pre-treatment option in the case of potable
reuse, where reverse osmosis is used. The development in membrane technologies
has led to the advancement of membranes for MBR application which are more
robust and still provide consistent and better water quality, delivering MBR technology
to be cost-effective.
Growing Demand for Hospital
Wastewater Treatment:
Hospital-discharged wastewater
contains several toxic organic compounds, pathogenic microorganisms,
radioactive elements, antibiotic groups, and ionic pollutants. These
contaminants impact human health and the environment leading to the spread of
disease. Therefore, for sustainable development, effective treatment of
hospital wastewater is a crucial task. For molecular separations, membranes
with controllable porous and nonporous formations have been rapidly developed.
MBR technology determined low
waste sludge production and high removal efficiency toward organic compounds.
MBRs and their applications are rapidly evolving to further improve the
separation efficiency and attain material recovery from hospital waste streams.
Membrane bioreactors are developing through hybridizing novel membranes into
the MBR units or the MBR as a pre-treatment step and integrating other membrane
procedures as a consequent secondary purification step.
Also, from epidemic prevention,
the by-product pollutants may lead to environmental issues and ultimately
impact human health. Thus, to prevent the spread of diseases, effective
treatment of hospital wastewater is a crucial step. The conventional approaches
in hospital wastewater treatment includes disinfection and chlorine dioxide
detoxification. Though, harmful ions, drugs, antibacterial, antivirals, and
other toxic substances persist in the hospital wastewater after the above
disinfection stages. Other aggressive methods are adopted, such as evaporation,
precipitation, and high temperature calcination, which may be helpful but come
with environmental strain, high cost, and low efficiency. Therefore, these
shortcomings greatly restrict the applications of these technologies in the
treatment of hospital wastewater.
In hospital wastewater treatment,
membrane separation is an advanced technology due to its relatively low energy
consumption, high solute selectivity, attractive process economics, and easy
scalability. To separate contaminants such as bacteria and protozoa or ions,
membranes have been extensively used in wastewater treatment. Medical
activities and hospitals use purified water every day, leading to the emission
of a great volume of hospital wastewater. This hospital wastewater includes
complicated compounds, including epidemic prevention/sanitation, laboratory
research, diagnostic activities, and medicine excretion. Therefore, these
factors drives the demand for membrane bioreactors for treating wastewater.