Testing an aerobic fluidized biofilm process to treat intermittent flows of oil polluted wastewater

An aerobic fluidized biofilm process of treating oil-polluted wastewater has been studied. A series of batch experiments were conducted using synthetic wastewater and the kinetic coefficients were evaluated. The maximum rate of substrate utilization per unit mass microorganisms (K) was 1.6 days-1, the substrate concentration at one-half the maximum growth rate (Ks) was 26 mg/L, the maximum specific growth rate (m) was 1.0 days-1, the ratio of the mass cells formed to the mass of substrate consumed (Y) was 0.61, and the endogenous decay coefficient (Kd ) was 0.044 days-1. The kinetic coefficients obtained were within the range of municipal wastewater. It was observed that up to 1500 mg/L oil (Motor oil SAE–40) could be degraded in a fluidized bed bioreactor (FBBR). The experiments, however, were limited to the oil concentration within a range of 1000-2600 mg/L. Average biofilm thickness () under specific conditions was found to be 22 m and average oil degradation rate of 0.053 mg oil/mg biomass/hour was measured in the FBBR. The results also support that the increase in the concentration of oil in the treatment process reduced significantly the degradation rate of non-oil carbon.

Optimization of electrocoagulation process parameters for enhancing phosphate removal in a biofilm-electrocoagulation system

This study aimed to enhance the removal of phosphate in synthetic rural sewage by using a continuous electrocoagulation combined with biofilm process in an integrated system. Characteristic indexes of biofilm process effluent covering pH, DO, SS, COD and phosphate maintained a narrow fluctuation range and tended not readily to influence the phosphate removal of subsequent electrocoagulation. Three parameters including inter-electrode distance, current intensity and reaction time were selected to investigate the performance of enhancing phosphate removal. On the strength of single-factor tests, the Box-Behnken design (BBD) coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to investigate the individual and mutual interaction impacts of the major operating parameters and to optimize conditions. The optimum conditions were found to be inter-electrode distance of 1.8 cm, current density of 2.1 mA/cm2 and EC reaction time of 34 min, and the phosphate removal efficiency was achieved to be 90.24% along with less than 1 mg/L in case of periodic polarity switching mode, which raised removal efficiency by 10.10% and reduced operating cost by 0.13 CNY/g PO4− compared to non-switching mode. The combination of biofilm processing and electrocoagulation treatment was proven a valid and feasible method for enhancing phosphate removal.

Anammox biofilm process using sugarcane bagasse as an organic carrier

The anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) biofilm process commonly uses various inorganic carriers to enhance nitrogen removal under anaerobic conditions. This study aims to analyze the performance of nitrogen removal in anammox process using sugarcane bagasse as an organic carrier. The experiment was carried out by using an up‐flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor for treating artificial wastewater at room temperature. The reactor was fed with ammonium and nitrite with the concentrations of 70‐150 mg–N/L and variations in the hydraulic retention time of 24 and 12 h. The granular anammox belongs to the genus Candidatus Brocadia sinica that was added as an inoculum of the reactor operation. The experimental stoichiometric of anammox for ΔNO2‐–N: ΔNH4+–N and ΔNO3‐: ΔNH4+ were 1.24 and 0.18, respectively, which is similar to anammox stoichiometry. The maximum Nitrogen Removal Rate (NRR) has achieved 0.29 kg–N/m3.d at Nitrogen Loading Rate (NLR) 0.6 kg–N/m3.d. The highest ammonium conversion efficiency (ACE) and nitrogen removal efficiency (NRE) were 88% and 85%, respectively. Based on this results, it indicated that sugarcane bagasse as organic carriers could increase the amount of total nitrogen removal by provided of denitrification process but inhibited the anammox process at a certain COD concentration.