The MBR Book: Principles and Applications of Membrane

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market in the 1990s, effectively displacing the older sidestream systems, such as
that of Rhodia-Orelis (now Novasep Orelis). To this day, Kubota continues to dominate
the Japanese membrane wastewater treatment market and also provides the
largest number of MBRs worldwide, although around 86% of these are for flows of
less than 0.2 MLD.
In the late 1980s, development of a hollow fibre (HF) UF iMBR was taking place
both in Japan, with pioneering work by Kazuo Yamamoto and his co-workers (1989),
and also in the US. By the early 1990s, the ZenoGem ® process had been patented
(Tonelli and Behmann, 1996; Tonelli and Canning, 1993), and the total installed
capacity had reached 2.8 MLD from installations in North America. Zenon introduced
its first immersed HF ZeeWeed ® module in 1993, this being the ZW145 (145 square
feet), quickly followed by the ZW130 and 150 modules. These were in time superceded
by the first of the ZW500 series in 1997. The company introduced the ZW500b, c and
d modules in 1999, 2001 and 2003 respectively, the design changing to increase the
overall process efficiency and cyclic aeration in 2000. Over this period, Kubota also
developed products with improved overall energy efficiency, introducing a doubledecker
design in 2003 (Section 5.2.1.4).
As already stated, the cumulative capacity of both Zenon and Kubota has
increased exponentially since the immersed products were first introduced (Fig. 1.7).
These two systems dominate the MBR market today, with a very large number of
small-scale Kubota systems and the largest MBR systems tending to be Zenon. The
largest MBR worldwide is currently at Kaarst in Germany (50 MLD), though there is
actually a larger membrane wastewater recycling facility in Kuwait (the Sulaibiya
plant), which has a design capacity of 375 MLD.
1.5.2 Development of other MBR products
Kubota Zenon
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Introduction 13
Other MBR products have been marketed with varying degrees of success, and
further products are likely to become available in the future. The installation of
Year
2001 2002 2003 2004
Figure 1.7 Cumulative installed capacity in m 3 /day for Kubota and Zenon