Abstract
In this work the aerobic degradation of phenol (PH), catechol (CA), resorcinol (RE), hydroquinone (HY) and of the binary mixtures PH+CA, PH+RE, PH+HY by phenol-acclimated activated sludge was studied. Single substrate experiments show a Haldane-type dependence of the respiration rate on PH, RE and HY, while CA corresponded to the Monod model. Binary substrate experiments demonstrated that the presence of a second substrate only affected the kinetics, but not the stoichiometry of the oxidation of the compounds tested. While CA inhibited the oxidation of PH, PH inhibited the oxidation of RE and HY. A mathematical model was developed to represent the aerobic biodegradation of the phenolic compounds tested. The agreement between the proposed model and the experimental data indicates that the proposed model can be useful for predicting substrate and dissolved oxygen concentrations in bioreactors treating phenolic wastewaters.
Highlights
Due to the wide use of phenol and its derivatives, phenolic compounds are widespread in the environment
The results suggest that, during the first phase of the respirogram corresponding to the mixture PH+CA, CA inhibited the metabolism of PH; for this reason, the maximum OURex values corresponding to the mixture PH+CA were close to those obtained during the addition of CA alone
This work addresses the aerobic degradation of phenol (PH), catechol (CA), resorcinol (RE) hydroquinone (HY) and the binary mixtures PH+CA, PH+RE, PH+HY by phenol-acclimated activated sludge
Summary
Due to the wide use of phenol and its derivatives, phenolic compounds are widespread in the environment. Wastewaters generated by chemical facilities are often extremely variable in terms of flowrate, composition and concentration of organic compounds, causing operational problems in continuous flow treatment systems (Edwards, 1995). The utilization of biological processes for purification of toxic wastewaters emphasizes the practical requirement of developing adequate mathematical models to be used for the design and operation of these processes under transient conditions. Considering that the knowledge of OUR is crucial for an appropriate design of aeration devices, the aim of this work was a study of the aerobic degradation of phenol (PH), catechol (CA), resorcinol (RE), hydroquinone (HY) and the binary mixtures PH+CA, PH+RE, PH+HY by phenol-acclimated activated sludge. A mathematical model was developed to describe the aerobic degradation of binary mixtures of PH with CA, RE and HY by phenol-acclimated activated sludge. The proposed model was validated using respirometric profiles corresponding to the binary mixtures of phenolic compounds
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