Development of aerobic granular sludge for real industrial/municipal wastewater treatment (original) (raw)
Related papers
Performance of Aerobic Granular Sludge for Domestic Wastewater Treatment
International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering, 2019
Aerobic granular sludge can be used to treat various types of wastewater, such as industrial, municipal and domestic wastewater. This study investigated the treatment of low-strength domestic wastewater while simultaneously developed aerobic granular sludge in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR). Activated sludge was used as the seeding for granulation. The results indicated good COD and ammoniacal nitrogen removal at 72% and 73%, respectively. Aerobic granular sludge was successfully developed with low sludge volume index (SVI30) of 29 mL/g, which demonstrated an excellent settling property of aerobic granular sludge. Biomass concentration increased significantly compared to the seed sludge, indicating high biomass density in the SBR system. Settling velocity of aerobic granular sludge was significantly higher compared to the conventional activated sludge. This study showed the feasibility of aerobic granular sludge to be developed using low-strength domestic wastewater. Moreover, thi...
Full scale performance of the aerobic granular sludge process for sewage treatment
Water Research, 2015
Recently, aerobic granular sludge technology has been scaled-up and implemented for industrial and municipal wastewater treatment under the trade name Nereda ®. With full-scale references for industrial treatment application since 2006 and domestic sewage since 2009 only limited operating data have been presented in scientific literature so far. In this study performance, granulation and design considerations of an aerobic granular sludge plant on domestic wastewater at the WWTP Garmerwolde, the Netherlands were analysed. After a start-up period of approximately 5 months, a robust and stable granule bed (>8 g L À1) was formed and could be maintained thereafter, with a sludge volume index after 5 min settling of 45 mL g À1. The granular sludge consisted for more than 80% of granules larger than 0.2 mm and more than 60% larger than 1 mm. Effluent requirements (7 mg N L À1 and 1 mg P L À1) were easily met during summer and winter. Maximum volumetric conversion rates for nitrogen and phosphorus were respectively 0.17 and 0.24 kg (m 3 d) À1. The energy usage was 13.9 kWh (PE 150 $year) À1 which is 58e63 % lower than the average conventional activated sludge treatment plant in the Netherlands. Finally, this study demonstrated that aerobic granular sludge technology can effectively be implemented for the treatment of domestic wastewater.
Water
Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is a recent innovative technology and is considered a forthcoming biological process for sustainable wastewater treatment. AGS is composed of the dense microbial consortium of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative types of bacteria. The mechanism of AGS formation and its stability for long-term operation is still a subject of current research. On the other hand, AGS makes the treatment process sustainable in a cost-effective way. However, in order for AGS to be applied in a broader range of applications, there are several challenges to overcome, such as slow-speed granulation and the disintegration of AGS after granulation. Many factors play a role in the stability of granules. The storage of granules and the later use of them for granulation startup is a feasible method for reducing the time for granulation and maintaining stability. This review focuses on the granulation process and characteristics of AGS, granulation time and the stability of AGS under...
Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019
Aim of the present study was to assess the feasibility of cultivating aerobic granular sludge for the treatment of real very low-strength (COD <120 mg L À1) municipal wastewater by the application of a strict metabolic selective pressure. The feasibility was evaluated in terms of long-term physical stability of the granular biomass as well as COD and phosphate removal efficiencies. A laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactor was inoculated with conventional activated sludge and operated for 175 d. Complete granulation of conventional activated sludge (SVI 5 /SVI 30 ¼ 1) was achieved within 45 d at an average influent COD concentration of 290 ± 44 mg L À1 obtained by the addition of an external source of acetate. At day 51, acetate dosage was stopped and the reactor was then operated for other four months with only real wastewater as carbon source, resulting in an influent COD concentration as low as 115 ± 23 mg L À1. Besides the decrease of the influent COD concentration and of the organic load, the long term stability of the granular sludge was not affected and granular size continuously increased until it reached a maturation phase with an average diameter of 1.5 mm, with more than 30% of the aggregates being larger than 2 mm and marginal presence of floccular biomass (about 5%). The applied metabolic selective pressure based on the complete biodegradable COD uptake under anaerobic conditions (85 ± 7% biodegradable COD removal efficiency obtained) was shown to be able to stimulate the formation of stable and large granules, indicating the other commonly applied selective pressure based on settling velocity (commonly > 8 m h À1 versus 1.9 m h À1 applied in this study), as not strictly required. The identification of the key factors to preserve biomass long-term stability and functionality, poses the basis to allow the application of aerobic granular sludge technology in the context of combined sewers systems and facilitate the retrofitting of existing wastewater treatment plants excluding the need for a plugflow distribution system for the influent wastewater.
Critical Reviews in Biotechnology, 2011
Aerobic granular sludge can be classified as a type of self-immobilized microbial consortium, consisting mainly of aerobic and facultative bacteria and is distinct from anaerobic granular methanogenic sludge. Aerobic granular technology has been proposed as a promising technology for wastewater treatment, but is not yet established as a large-scale application. Aerobic granules have been cultured mainly in sequenced batch reactors (SBR) under hydraulic selection pressure. The factors influencing aerobic granulation, granulation mechanisms, microbial communities and the potential applications for the treatment of various wastewaters have been studied comprehensively on the laboratory-scale. Aerobic granular sludge has shown a potential for nitrogen removal, but is less competitive for the high strength organic wastewater treatments. This technology has been developed from the laboratory-scale to pilot scale applications, but with limited and unpublished full-scale applications for municipal wastewater treatment. The future needs and limitations for aerobic granular technology are discussed.
The Comparison of Different Nutrient Sources in Development of Aerobic Granular Sludge
MATEC Web of Conferences
Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) as recent biological wastewater treatment has been developed in a modified sequencing batch reactor (SBR) using real textile wastewater. This experiment focused on comparing the effects of different nutrient sources, i.e. fine chemicals and fertilizer, on the characteristics of the AGS. The development of AGS conducted in a reactor that called as aerobic up-flow fluidized bed (AUFB) reactor. AUFB reactor allows the three-steps SBR operation namely filling-and-discharging, reaction, and settling. The developed AGS was characterized through some parameters i.e. physical characteristics (morphology, size distribution, settling velocity, specific gravity), granulation profile (MLSS and SVI), and removal performances (removal of COD and colour). The results showed that the developed AGS has a slight morphological difference as the effect of each nutrient source. Interestingly, metal ions contained in the nutrient sources affect the granulation profile and re...
Water, 2021
Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) comprises an aggregation of microbial cells in a tridimensional matrix, which is able to remove carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous as well as other pollutants in a single bioreactor under the same operational conditions. During the past decades, the feasibility of implementing AGS in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for treating sewage using fundamentally sequential batch reactors (SBRs) has been studied. However, granular sludge technology using SBRs has several disadvantages. For instance, it can present certain drawbacks for the treatment of high flow rates; furthermore, the quantity of retained biomass is limited by volume exchange. Therefore, the development of continuous flow reactors (CFRs) has come to be regarded as a more competitive option. This is why numerous investigations have been undertaken in recent years in search of different designs of CFR systems that would enable the effective treatment of urban and industrial wastewater, keeping ...
Simulation of Aerobic Granular Sludge Process Efficiency
Revista de Chimie
Using aerobic granular sludge for wastewater treatment has multiple advantages compared to conventional activated sludge systems, most important being the ability of simultaneous removal of the pollutants responsible for eutrophication: organic load, compounds of nitrogen (NH4+; NO3-) and phosphorus (PO43-). The advantages are currently exploited for developing the next generation of wastewater treatment systems while the identified limitations are approached by experimental and theoretical researches worldwide. The aim of the study consists in evaluating the possibility of predicting the system�s response to different changes in the influent wastewater loadings. The paper presents simulations results backed up by experimental data for pollutants removal efficiencies evaluation for a sequential batch reactor (SBR) with aerobic granular sludge. The mathematical model is based on the activated sludge model no. 3, which was updated by considering the simultaneous biological nitrificati...
Water Science and Technology, 2020
In this study, three different aerobic granular sludge (AGS) reactors fed with anaerobically pre-treated brewery wastewater were studied. The AGS reactors were operated under different conditions including organic loading rates (OLR) between 0.8 and 4.1 kg COD m−3 d−1, C:N:P ratios (100:10:1 and 100:6:1) and food to microorganism ratios (F/M) between 0.8 ± 0.6 and 1.2 ± 0.5 and 0.9 ± 0.3 kg-TCOD kg-VSS−1d−1. Stable granulation was achieved within two weeks and the size of the granules increased according to the OLR applied. The results indicated that low C:N:P and F/M ratios were favorable to achieve stable aerobic granules in the long term. The carbon removal rate was load-independent in the range examined (TCOD removal >80%), whereas TN removals were inversely proportional to the OLRs. Overall, a longer aeration reaction time with a lower OLR was beneficial to granular structure, which exhibited a compact and defined architecture. Performance results within the other conditions...