Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
An Integrated Attached Growth Bioreactor for the Treatment of Wastewater
Ezerie Henry Ezechi, Shamsul Rahman bin Mohamed Kutty, Mohamed Hasnain Isa, Amirhossein Malakahmad and Nasiru Aminu
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) 32160, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2015 10:1066-1070
Received: June 8, 2015 | Accepted: July 8, 2015 | Published: December 05, 2015
Abstract
An integrated attached growth bioreactor was evaluated in this study for the removal of organic matter (COD). The bioreactor integrated the aerobic tank, anoxic tank and the secondary clarifier in a single unit. An attached growth media was submerged into the aerobic tank to improve the growth of biomass while bio-balls were submerged into the anoxic tank. Synthetic wastewater simulating medium and high strength domestic wastewater were pumped into the reactor for biodegradation. Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) was varied in the range 12 and 7.2 days. Influent COD was introduced in two phases. Phase 1 consists of COD 400 mg/L whereas phase 2 consists of COD 650 mg/L. In phase 1, steady state was attained from day 18 until day 26. Effluent concentrations of COD were approximately 9 mg/L at HRT of 12 days. The effluent COD concentration increased (16 mg/L) when COD concentration was increased to 650 mg/L at HRT of 12 days. Effluent COD decreased from 19-9 mg/L when HRT was increased from 7.2-12 days. The effluent COD obtained in this study was below the Malaysia Department of Environment (DOE) guideline limit Standard A (120 mg/L). Residual ammonia, nitrate and total suspended solids were also monitored at steady state. Results show a 97, 87 and 97%, respectively removals for ammonia, nitrate and TSS, respectively. The attached growth media in the aerobic and anoxic tanks provided a large surface area for the attachment of biomass. The bioreactor performance shows it can serve as an alternative footprint for the treatment of wastewater.
Keywords:
Attached growth, bioballs, COD, HRT, integrated bioreactor, MLSS , perspex,
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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ISSN (Online): 2040-7467
ISSN (Print): 2040-7459 |
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