Pertubated loading of a formaldehyde waste in an anaerobic granular activated carbon fluidized bed reactor

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the biological treatment of a formaldehyde waste simulating wastewater from a resin production facility. An analysis of degradation of a high strength organic waste stream containing formaldehyde in an anaerobic fluidized bed granular activated carbon bioreactor (AFBGAC) is presented. In the first part of this study, the AFBGAC bioreactor was operated for a total of 700 days under four different continuous loading rates, to optimize the hydraulic retention time, until steady state performance was obtained. In the second part, the effect of substrate perturbation on effluent quality was examined by periodically loading the reactor using five distinct perturbation schemes to simulate different production shifts. The feed under the first three perturbation schemes was applied in cycles of 16 h on and 8 h off, 12 h on and 12 h off, and 8 h on and 16 h off. The fourth scheme applied feed at 8 h on and 16 h off with no feed on weekends. The fifth scheme examined the long-term effect of substrate limitation using the 8 h on and 16 h off loading cycle with a feed interruption of 9 days. The organic loading per day was kept constant throughout the feed perturbation study. The reactor removed more than 95% of the dissolved organic carbon content of the waste under both continuous and cyclic loading. Formaldehyde removal rates of up to 99.99% were achieved under continuous loading while removal rates ranged from 97.4% to 99.9% under cyclic loading. Although the AFBGAC failed occasionally due to excessive buildup of attached biomass during the phase of continuous loading, it still maintained excellent overall removal efficiencies. It also showed resilience to substrate limitations and load perturbations under dynamic loadings. The results presented in this study provide a promising strategy to treat inhibitory wastes.