NOVELTY - A hybrid membrane distillation bioreactor system (100) for treating a contaminated inflow, comprises a bioreactor vessel (102) defining a reaction chamber (104), for biodegrading the contaminated inflow with a biological agent to produce a lower contaminant inflow; a distillation membrane (108) for distilling the inflow to produce an outflow; and an outlet conduit.    USE - For treating contaminated inflow (claimed) such as wastewater containing water and contaminants e.g. biodegradable organics and bacteria, to obtain water; in a wastewater reclamation system; for wastewater treatment, such as near power station or incinerator, or in industry where wastewater and waste heat is produced; and in wastewater treatment of oil rigs, large ships, space stations, where waste heat is abundant and space is limited.    ADVANTAGE - The distillation membrane defines a permeation path between feed side and permeate side for allowing a desired volatile substance to permeate through the membrane in a vapor phase but substantially blocks passage of any substance in a liquid or solid phase. The system, when used in a wastewater reclamation system, effectively removes residual organics in the mixed liquor; and effectively removes and separates any solid or liquid contaminants in the mixed liquor from the permeate, as long as the contaminants have sufficiently low vapor pressure at the feed side temperature, as compared to the water vapor pressure. This allows sufficient time for the organic solutes in the mixed liquor to decompose in the bioreactor. Only after these solutes have been decomposed, the decomposed substance may become permeable through the distillation membrane. Thus, the residence or retention time of the biodegradable organics in the bioreactor can be very long, ensuring sufficient biodegradation. The system, even with a submerged membrane module, can produce permeate fluxes that are comparable to those of conventional microfiltration (MF) or ultrafiltration (UF) membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems, and much higher than that of a conventional nanofiltration (NF) MBR system, under similar operating conditions. The system produces high quality permeates in a single processing step. The system does use sophisticated and expensive instruments and techniques to monitor the membrane integrity such as fiber breakdown. As the distillation membrane blocks large portion of the dissolved residual organics in the feed, the resulting permeates or outflow can have less organic contaminants. With the system, almost all of salt, non-volatile organic compounds and microorganisms may be separated from permeate. The purity and quality of permeate in the process can be higher than that obtained in a conventional MBR process. The permeate quality in the systems is independent of the biological activities in the mixed liquor in the bioreactor. The total organic carbon content (TOC) in permeate can also be lower, such as less than 0.8, as compared to 3 - 10 parts per million (ppm) in a conventional MBR process. The permeate quality can be as good as obtained from a conventional MBR process combined with reverse osmosis (RO). The system can also have a fast start-up time. In the system, the organic retention time (ORT) is independent of the hydraulic retention time (HRT), and can be very long, as it is only dependent on the reactions involving the organics. The system may have a smaller footprint, and thus require less land or physical space, as compared to conventional MBR systems combined with RO. The system does not require lot of electrical energy. The system may be maintained at lower cost, as compared to conventional wastewater treatment systems.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - A hybrid membrane distillation bioreactor system (100) for treating a contaminated inflow, comprises a bioreactor vessel (102) defining a reaction chamber (104), for biodegrading the contaminated inflow with a biological agent to produce a lower contaminant inflow; a distillation membrane (108) located within reaction chamber, for distilling lower contaminant inflow to produce an outflow; and an outlet conduit in fluid communication with distillation membrane for extracting the outflow out of reaction chamber. The distillation membrane has a hydrophobic surface; is porous; and has an average pore size of 0.05 - 5 micron, and thickness of 0.05 - 1.5 mm. The system further includes gas injector, heater and cooling device.    An INDEPENDENT CLAIM is included for treating a contaminated flow comprising:    (a) providing the bioreactor vessel and distillation membrane;    (b) placing a biological agent and contaminated inflow in the reaction chamber to biodegrade contaminant to produce lower concentration inflow;    (c) distilling the inflow; and    (d) extracting outflow out of reaction chamber.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows a schematic cross-sectional view of the membrane distillation bioreactor system.    hybrid membrane distillation bioreactor system (100)    bioreactor vessel (102)    reaction chamber (104)    mixed liquor (106)    distillation membrane (108)    feed side (110)    permeate side (112)    permeate (116)