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Effects of sludge pretreatment on sludge reduction in a lab-scale anaerobic/anoxic/oxic system treating domestic wastewater

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Abstract

Excess sludge disposal is one of the serious challenges in biological wastewater treatment. Reduction of sludge production would be an ideal way to solve sludge-associated problems rather than the post-treatment of the sludge produced. In this study, a new wastewater treatment process combining anaerobic/anoxic/oxic system with thermochemical sludge pretreatment was tested in a laboratory scale experiment. In this study, the effects of the sludge pretreatment on the excess sludge production in anaerobic/anoxic/oxic were investigated. The system was operated in two Runs (1 and 2). In Run 1, the system was operated as a reference and in Run 2, a part of the mixed liquid was pretreated thermochemically and was returned to the bioreactor. The average solubilization efficiency of pretreated sludge was found to be about 35 % during the study period of 220 days. Sludge production rate in Run 2 was less than that in Run 1 by about 52 %. Total phosphorous was removed by enhanced biological phosphorous removal with the removal efficiency of 83–87 % and 81–83 % for Run 1 and Run 2, respectively. Total nitrogen removal in Run 2 (79–82 %) was slightly higher than that in Run 1 (68–75 %). The mixed liquor suspended solids/mixed liquor volatile suspended solids ratio was identical after both runs in the range 78–83 %. The effluent water qualities were not significantly affected when operated with thermochemical pretreatment at pH 11 and 60 °C for 3 h during 7 months. From the present study it is concluded that thermochemical sludge pretreatment of anaerobic/anoxic/oxic process plays an important role in reduction of sludge production.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Brain Korea 21 (BK-21) program from Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The authors would also like to thank the partial supports of the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (Grant number: 2010-0008860).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam

    D. K. Uan

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea

    D. K. Uan & I. T. Yeom

  3. Centre of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia

    P. Arulazhagan

  4. Department of Civil Engineering, Anna University Tirunelveli, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India

    J. Rajesh Banu

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  1. D. K. Uan
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  2. I. T. Yeom
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  4. J. Rajesh Banu
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Correspondence to J. Rajesh Banu.

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Uan, D.K., Yeom, I.T., Arulazhagan, P. et al. Effects of sludge pretreatment on sludge reduction in a lab-scale anaerobic/anoxic/oxic system treating domestic wastewater. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 10, 495–502 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-012-0120-0

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