The performance of a two-stage SBR system in treating dye containing wastewater

Abstract

A two-stage SBR system treating the wastewater containing copper-phthalocyanin dye-Reactive Turquoise Blue KN-G (C. I. Reactive Blue 21, denoted by RTB) was investigated during a 200-cycle operation. The performance of the system, including pollutant removal rates, operating stability and sludge characteristics, may be a concern in the long-term run. The results shows that the system removed RTB efficiently despite the step-up RTB concentration from 13.1 to 107 mg/L in the influent. The average total removal rates of RTB were 81% to 92.5% due to the contribution of both anaerobic and aerobic stages, while stable effluent was produced with the help of the aerobic stage. The sludge in each reactor was in the steady state and of good activity on RTB removal. Moreover, the anaerobic sludge with the SVI value of 109.1 and the aerobic sludge with the SVI value of 103.2 had good settling properties, which was verified by hardly any presence of suspended solids in the effluent and an observation under an electron-scanning microscope. The adsorption and biodegradation were considered as the mechanism for the stability of the SBR system during the long-term run.