Influence of carrier surface area and surface area loading rate on moving bed biofilm reactor performance in COD removal from municipal and industrial wastewater
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Date
2021-06
Authors
Bachari, Zahra
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Abstract
Moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) is a biological process providing wastewater treatment. Compared to conventional activated sludge (CAS) systems, MBBR includes remarkable advantages such as handling higher volumetric loading rates while employing smaller reactors, including more biomass concentration, lower hydraulic retention time (HRT), and higher solids retention time (SRT) without recycling requirements. Nowadays, a large number of plants are using MBBRs to provide an efficient Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). However, the number of studies on substrate removal, especially at high loading rates, from municipal and industrial wastewater using these technologies is limited compared to the other conventional systems.
Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the organic matter removal performance of aerobic MBBRs, containing biocarriers with various surface areas, operating at different surface area loading rates (SALRs). To fulfill this goal, the experimental research was defined in two phases: 1) assessing the MBBRs’ performance in treating low-strength, real municipal wastewater; 2) investigating the MBBRs’ efficiency in treating very high-strength, synthetic industrial wastewater. In both phases, the performance of MBBRs containing different types of media and working under various SALRs was evaluated and compared. The second phase also included assessing the recovery time and reactors’ efficiency by decreasing the SALR after an almost complete media clogging. The optimal operational parameters were found for each phase, and it was confirmed that the MBBRs are able to handle SALRs as high as 18 g BOD m-2d-1 in treating municipal wastewater with >70% sCOD removal and SALRs as high as 28 g BOD m-2d-1 in treating synthetic industrial wastewater with ~87% sCOD removal.
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Keywords
MBBR, COD removal, Surface area loading rate, Municipal wastewater, Industrial wastewater