The efficiency of enhanced biological phosphorus removal from real wastewater affected by different ratios of acetic to propionic acid

Abstract

The effect of different ratios of propionic to acetic acid on the efficiency of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) from real wastewater supplemented with volatile fatty acids (VFAs) was investigated. Two sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were used to acclimate two types (SBR1 and SBR2) of biomass. They were cultured and studied using real wastewater with an average propionic to acetic acid carbon molar ratio of 0.16 and 2.06, respectively. The laboratory results showed that for a given long-term cultured biomass the more the soluble ortho-phosphate (SOP) was released in the anaerobic stage, the higher the SOP was taken up in the aerobic phase. However, the SBR2 biomass had a much greater SOP uptake to release ratio than SBR1, which resulted in a higher SOP removal efficiency than SBR1 (average 87.3% versus 76.9% in SBRs experiments, and 93.5% against 68.1% in batch tests). The SBR2 biomass therefore had a higher SOP uptake ability than the SBR1 for a given amount of SOP release. In addition, the SBR1 had a higher secondary SOP release following VFAs uptake. It was found that the SBR2 biomass synthesized and utilized less observable polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) during the anaerobic and aerobic stage respectively than SBR1. The apparent PHAs utilization efficiency for SOP uptake with the SBR2 biomass was much greater than with the SBR1, and the SBR2 biomass synthesized less glycogen during aerobiosis than SBR1, which might mean a higher PHAs fraction was used for SOP removal, resulting in the increased efficiency with the long-term cultured SBR2 biomass. Higher propionic acid content led to superior EBPR in long-term cultivation, but was transiently detrimental in the short term.