Abstract
Population growth in developing countries leads to overloading existing sewage treatment plants. Additionally, suburban residential complexes are sometimes constructed and inhabited before their sewage treatment facilities are ready for various reasons. Therefore, there is a need for locally developed package units which should be robust, modular, and require minimum maintenance. The following article describes the conceptual design of a hybrid bioreactor of such a unit intended to treat 120 m3 of sewage per day. The design makes use of published literature in this regard over the last three decades. The proposed bioreactor consists of an upstream circulating bed compartment (CBC) with plastic biofilm carriers and a downstream microfiltration membrane compartment (MMC). Each of these two compartments has a nominal effective volume of 29 m3. The CBC is mainly anoxic whilst the MMC is aerobic (oxic) making the reactor an A/O arrangement. Following implementation, an initial experimental phase is envisaged to tune the reactor with respect to functionality and maximization of nitrogen removal. Details of this tuning phase are also given in the article.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.erem.73.2.18193
Highlights
Developing countries, in general, face a big challenge of treating domestic sewage from an increasing number of decentralised residential complexes and overloaded existing treatment plants due to population growth
The bioreactor consists of two compartments: an upstream mainly anoxic circulating bed compartment (CBC) and a downstream oxic submerged membrane compartment (SMC)
The CBC is split by a vertical baffle into two equal sections: a riser and a downcomer
Summary
Developing countries, in general, face a big challenge of treating domestic sewage from an increasing number of decentralised residential complexes and overloaded existing treatment plants due to population growth. The concept of a hybrid biofilm membrane bioreactor was introduced in 2006 by Leiknes et al (2006) in the hope of reducing membrane fouling by high biomass concentrations It consisted of an upstream moving-bed biofilm reactor and a downstream submerged membrane unit (MBMBR). The overgrowth of filamentous bacteria inhabiting the biofilm and sludge suspension in the hybrid MBMBR resulted in a thick and dense cake layer on the membrane surface This led to more severe membrane fouling in the hybrid reactor as compared with the conventional one. In the development of the proposed hybrid bioreactor conceptual design in this study, both an anoxic circulating bed part and an aerobic submerged membrane part were connected in series in an A/O arrangement to utilise both attached and suspended biomass for organic carbon and nitrogen removal. ECatcohthlaetteorpaolf thethdoewCncBoCmeartseactimonaoxfimtheumCBCfloawt a mraatxeimoufmthflroewerattiemes the branch contains fiv1e91669-6momf othfhrtoehelreetsiem.tieHmseethsnecthreee,arctehtaoecr’tosdrii’nfsffulionswfelorrwater.atrAee.asAicdtesoidsrte’rsesaitmnrefaloomfwtohfirsathrteiestu.rreAntufsrlnoidwfelowswitlrlwebiaellmsboenoiscfoantthiecdiastteordettourn flow is a coarse air-bu1b9b7le ocnonetroplrothveidoivnegrgrtohwethnoefcfeislasmaernytous wbaiclltebriea.sAodndicitaiotneadllytomcioxendtrloiql utohresohavlel rbgerowwastthedof filamenair to create the up-f1lo97w thcroonutrgohl tthheeomveergmrobwrtahnoef cfialasmeentotuosubsacbtaercitae. rAiad.dAitidodniatliloynmalilxyedmliixqeudorlisqhualolrbsehwaallstbeed wasted (to maintain the fu1n918c9ti8onfarolfmirtoymbootbfhottchhomecopmmarptemamretmnbtesrnattons ectoson)ctoraonsltrSoRl STfRraoTtmaatdbaesoditreehsdircevodamluveap.luaFeri.gtmFuriegeun1rtessh1otswohsocwaossnctahreosmclhaSetmiRcaTttoicpa-ttoap- desired well as the dissolv1e9d9 oxyvgieewn orfetqheupirreodpofsoedr rtehaectoare(rAo)baincd a scvhaelmueat.icFisgiduer-evie1wsohfoiwt (sB)a. schematic top-view of the procondition in this com1p9a9rtmveinewt. oTfhtheepporospiotisoendirnegactoofr (tAhe) and paoscsheedmraetiaccstioder-(vAie)waonfdita(Bs)c.hematic side-view of it (B)
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