Abstract
The present study investigates the performance of a pilot-scale Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) process for the treatment of wastewater quality parameters, including turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS), total solids (TS), nitrogen (ammonia (NH3–N), nitrite (NO2−), and nitrate (NO3−), phosphate (PO43−), the chemical oxygen demand (COD), and the 5-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5), from municipal wastewater. Two scenarios, namely, pre-anoxic denitrification and post-anoxic denitrification, were investigated to examine the performance of a pilot-scale SBR on the wastewater quality parameters, particularly the nitrogen removal. The correlation statistic was applied to explain the effects of operational parameters on the performance of the SBR system. The results revealed that the post-anoxic denitrification scenario was more efficient for higher qualify effluent than the first scenario. The effluent concentrations of the targeted wastewater quality parameters obtained for the proposed SBR system were below those of the local standards, while its performance was better than that of the North Sewage Treatment Plant, Dharan, Eastern province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), in terms of the BOD5, COD, TN, and PO43- treatment efficiencies. These results indicated the suitability of SBR technology for wastewater treatment in remote areas in the KSA, with a high potential of reusability for sustainable wastewater management.
Highlights
The activated sludge system (ASS) has been the conventional technique adopted by the majority of municipal wastewater treatment plants, globally, for wastewater treatment [1]
The highest NH3 –N removal efficiency of 99.9% was achieved by scenario II (SCII) (Batch# 6–4), while scenario I (SCI) resulted in the lowest NH3 –N removal efficiency of 77.0% (Batch# 3–1)
These results reveal that more favorable conditions for the oxidation of NH3 –N were provided by SCII, where the average Ta /to total batch runtime (Ttotal) = 0.36, while the average Ta /Ttotal in SCI was 0.24
Summary
The activated sludge system (ASS) has been the conventional technique adopted by the majority of municipal wastewater treatment plants, globally, for wastewater treatment [1]. The sequencing batch reactor (SBR), an enhanced form of the ASS process, has become a popular replacement technique due to its unique merits [2]. The SBR is one of the integrated systems for anaerobic-aerobic bioreactors in which the wastewater is treated in a fill and draw method [3]. The process of a typical SBR mainly consists of five steps, conducted in the following sequence: filling, reacting, settling, decanting, and idle [4,5]. In the first phase (the filling phase), the wastewater influent and additional enhancement substrate (if required) are added, from which up to 75% of the container reactor volume can be occupied. During the reaction phase, which is the second step of the SBR process, considering specific
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