The Characteristics of Aerobic Granules Cultivated with the Effluent from an Anaerobic Baffled Reactor for Berberine Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

In this study, aerobic granular sludge was cultivated with the effluent of anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) which degraded berberine wastewater. After 80-day operation, stable granules with sizes of 2-10 mm were obtained. With the granulation, the SVI value decreased from 120 to 20.34 mL/g. The granular sludge had an excellent settling ability with the settling velocity over 104 m/h. Aerobic granular sludge exhibited good performance for organics and berberine removals from the effluent of ABR. After granulation, high and stable removal efficiencies of 90.47% for COD, 64.32% for berberine, were achieved with the volumetric exchange ratio of 50% and cycle duration of 6 h. The average COD and berberine of the effluent were 171.1mg/L and 3.88mg/L, after aerobic granules matured.