Treatment of oilfield wastewater using algal–bacterial fluidized bed reactor

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study was carried out to investigate the ability of an artificial microalgal–bacterial consortium to remediate an oilfield wastewater using laboratory-scale fluidized bed reactors (FBRs) under lighting. The consortium consists of an oil-degrading bacterial community and a microalgae, Scenedesmus obliquus GH2. The microbes were immobilized onto Ca-alginate beads and filled to the FBRs. The influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen, NH3-N and oil concentration was investigated over 40 operational days. The synergistic relationship in the algal–bacterial microcosm was clearly demonstrated, since for the four parameters tested, the highest removal was recorded in the system inoculated with both algae and bacteria. In the algal–bacterial FBR, at 16 h HRT, the average effluent concentrations of COD, NH3-N and oil were 92, 24 and 4.8 mg/L, respectively, corresponding to removal efficiencies of 70.8%, 61.2% and 84.2%, respectively. The effluent could meet the grade 2 as required by the national discharge standard of China. However, the effluent quality of the bacterial- or algal-only case could not satisfy the grade 3 discharge standard at 16 h HRT. The algal–bacterial biomass exhibits lowest effluent microtoxicity and highest dehydrogenase activity in comparison with bacterial-only and algal-only cases. This study reveals that the consortium containing dual microbial species has potential for microbial remediation of oilfield wastewater.