According to a previous publication Atec was one of the partners in a cooperative research project for the examination of the elimination of trace contaminants such as Bisphenol A (BPA) and Diclofenac by means of an enzyme based membrane bioreactor (MBR).

The below mentioned open-access publication reports the partial results from this research project:

“Enhanced laccase-mediated transformation of diclofenac and flufenamic acid in the presence of bisphenol A and testing of an enzymatic membrane reactor”; Hahn, V., Meister, M., Hussy, S. et al. AMB Expr (2018) 8: 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-018-0546-y

The examined treatment process combines special enzymes and the proven membrane filtration technology of Atec Neu-Ulm. Ceramic ultrafiltration membranes with “tight” pore sizes were used for the tests. The publication shows that the elimination rates of the trace contaminants by means of enzymes depend strongly on the chemical composition of the wastewater. This means that for appropriate industrial wastewater, the enzyme based MBR process can be a viable alternative to current treatment / disposal processes. It can also be an interesting technology which allows companies to comply with more strict future limits for trace contaminants.