Abstract
In this study, experiments have been conducted to evaluate the organics and nutrients removal from synthetic wastewater by a laboratory scale moving bed biofilm process. For nutrients removal, moving bed biofilm process has been applied in series with anaerobic, anoxic and aerobic units in four separate reactors. Moving bed biofilm reactors were operated continuously at different loading rates of nitrogen and Phosphorus. During optimum conditions, close to complete nitrification with average ammonium removal efficiency of 99.72% occurred in the aerobic reactor. In the aerobic reactor, the average specific nitrification rate was 1.8 g NOx-N kg VSS −1 h −1 . The results of the average effluent soluble COD concentration from each reactor showed that denitrification process in the second anoxic reactor consumed most of the biodegradable organic matter. As seen from the results, denitrification rate has increased with increasing NOx-N loading in the second anoxic reactor. The aerobic phosphate removal rate showed a good correlation to the anaerobic phosphate release rate. Moreover, phosphate removal rate showed a strong correlation to the phosphate loading rate in the aerobic reactor. In optimum conditions, the average SCOD, total nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiencies were 96.9, 84.6 and 95.8%, respectively. This study showed that the moving bed biofilm process could be used as an ideal and efficient option for the total nutrient removal from municipal wastewater.
Highlights
Limited water resources and increasing urbanization require a more advanced technology to preserve water quality
The obtained results showed that during optimum conditions (500 mg COD L−1, 62.5 mg NH4-N L−1 and 12.5 mg PO4-P L−1), close to complete organic carbon removal with 96.87% efficiency occurred in the total Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) system
In this research an experimental study to evaluate the application of MBBR system for the organic carbon and nutrients removal from wastewater is described
Summary
Limited water resources and increasing urbanization require a more advanced technology to preserve water quality. Wastewater with high levels of organic matter (COD) Phosphorus (P) and Nitrogen (N) cause several problems, such as eutrophication, oxygen consumption and toxicity, when discharged to the environment[2] It is, necessary to remove these substances from wastewaters for reducing their harm to environments[3]. Biological processes based upon suspended biomass (i.e., activated sludge processes) are effective for organic carbon and nutrient removal in municipal wastewater plants. Biofilm reactors are especially useful when slow growing organisms like nitrifiers have to be kept in a wastewater treatment process. There are already many different biofilm systems in use, such as trickling filters, Rotating Biological Contactors (RBCs), fixed media submerged biofilters, granular media biofilters, fluidised bed reactors, etc.
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