Gaining Top International Recognition! OriginWater and Universities Publish Breakthrough VMBR Results in Nature Communications!

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Recently, a research achievement jointly completed by OriginWater, Tsinghua University, and Beijing Normal University, "Vibrating Membrane Bioreactor Enhances Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal and Energy Efficiency in Municipal Wastewater Treatment," was published in the top international academic journal Nature Communications. Through long-term parallel comparative experiments at engineering scale, the achievement systematically reveals the intrinsic energy-saving and efficiency-enhancing mechanisms of the vibrating membrane bioreactor (VMBR), providing a solid scientific basis and a replicable technical pathway for the green and low-carbon transformation of the water industry.

The research data are striking. Compared with the conventional aeration membrane bioreactor (AMBR), VMBR significantly improves effluent quality while achieving multi-dimensional leaps in energy efficiency:

Total nitrogen in the effluent is reduced by approximately 22%, and chemical phosphorus removal agents are saved by approximately 40%;

Energy consumption for membrane fouling control drops sharply by approximately 75%, and total system electricity consumption is reduced by approximately 24%;

The carbon footprint is reduced by approximately 30%, achieving synergistic optimization of pollution control, biological treatment, and low-carbon operation.

"Vibration" Replaces "Aeration": Disrupting the MBR Process from First Principles

Membrane fouling is the core bottleneck constraining the development of MBR technology. Conventional AMBR relies on high-intensity continuous aeration to scour the membrane surface, resulting in a high share of energy consumption, and the high dissolved oxygen environment easily interferes with biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal.

To address this longstanding industry problem, OriginWater innovatively adopts horizontal reciprocating mechanical vibration to directly drive the membrane module, completely replacing aeration as the means of membrane fouling control. The disruptive nature of this technical pathway lies in the fact that VMBR uses mechanical force to "directly push the membrane," achieving a geometric improvement in energy utilization efficiency. At the same time, the dissolved oxygen in the membrane tank can be precisely and stably controlled below 0.5 mg/L, effectively solving engineering challenges such as hair and fiber clogging and plate compaction with gas accumulation.

From Laboratory to Engineering Site: VMBR Technology "Internationally Leading"

Leveraging OriginWater's decades of accumulation in membrane materials, membrane equipment, and large-scale water treatment engineering, the team deeply integrated VMBR with the AAOA (anaerobic-anoxic-oxic-anoxic) biological process, achieving large-scale demonstration application for the first time at the Beijing Doudian Reclaimed Water Plant, and completing rigorous comparative verification on this platform. This is also an important reason why the research results were favored by Nature Communications.

In October 2021, when the technology was officially released, an expert panel led by academicians evaluated it as "a major technological breakthrough, with large-scale demonstration application in actual engineering being internationally leading." Subsequently, VMBR won the First Prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award of China Communications Construction Group and the First Prize of the Environmental Protection Equipment Technology Innovation Award, and was included in the Catalogue of Major Environmental Protection Technology and Equipment Encouraged for Development by the State.

Beyond the Paper: A Large-Scale Answer Sheet of Nearly 400,000 Tons/Day

Recognition from a top journal must ultimately take root and sprout in the soil of industry. By the end of 2025, OriginWater's VMBR technology had been deployed and promoted in key water environment-sensitive areas such as the Haihe River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin, with a cumulative applied engineering scale approaching 400,000 tons/day, making it a benchmark technical solution for the low-carbon upgrading of China's wastewater treatment industry.

(Taicang Chengdong Water Quality Purification Plant, which adopts OriginWater's VMBR technology)

At a time when the "dual carbon" strategy is being deeply advanced, this Nature Communications paper is not only a scientific endorsement of an original technology, but also a vivid footnote showing how a Chinese environmental protection enterprise is moving from "following" to "leading" in global water treatment technology competition.