Published in Scientific Bulletin. Series F. Biotechnologies, Vol. XIX
Written by Ioana Alexandra IONESCU, Costel BUMBAC, Petruta CORNEA
Many recent studies in the field of wastewater treatment and environmental protection have focused their attention on the possibility of obtaining aerobic granular sludge in order to develop new innovative wastewater treatment technologies. Compared to conventional activated sludge wastewater treatment plants, aerobic granular technology represent a novel alternative offering numerous advantages such as high biomass retention, good settling ability and simultaneous removal of organic load and nutrients. The main focus of research was to evaluate granules formation and evolution of treatment performances. Two lab scale sequencing batch bioreactors were used in the experiment. The first bioreactor (D) was inoculated with conventional activated sludge while the other one (GM) was inoculated with crushed aerobic granular sludge. Both bioreactors were fed with dairy industry wastewater with high organic and nutrients load (CODCr=1723 – 3550 mg O2/L, BOD5 = 492 – 1806 mgO2/L; NH4 += 64,6 - 114 mg/L, P tot = 5,04 – 21,5 mg/L). The first granular structures were observed after 5 days (10 treatment cycles) with a diameter of 67 to 556 μm in D bioreactor and with 392 to 1200 μm in GM bioreactor. By the end of the experiment the granules in D bioreactor reached 2 mm in diameter while the granules in GM bioreactor reached up to 4 mm in diameter. Treatment performances increased along with the growth of granules size.
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aerobic granular sludge
