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The effects of anaerobic reactor post-treatments by rapid filtration systems and conventional techniques

  • Current Trends and Research in Industrial Wastewater Treatment through Bioreactor Approach
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Abstract

Although anaerobic reactors are an excellent alternative in the treatment of domestic effluents, they have the disadvantage of requiring post-treatment. Many technologies have been studied and, recently, rapid filtration systems have been presented as a viable alternative for post-treatment. This work compared post-treatment techniques for anaerobic upflow sludge blanket (UASB) reactors by rapid filtration systems (double filtration (DF); triple filtration with clinoptilolite (TFc); and triple filtration with activated carbon (TFac)) to conventional systems (facultative pond (FP); biological filter (BF); biological filter with recirculation and decantation (BFD)), verifying their potential for improvement of the final effluent quality. The UASB effluent post-treatments by FP, BF, BFD, DF, TFc, and TFac were evaluated. The removal of turbidity in both BFD and FP post-treatments was below 75%. The DF, TFc, and TFac treatments showed over 99% removal of the same parameters. COD removal in the FP, BF, and BFD post-treatments was over 10%, while in the DF, TFc, and TFac treatments, it was over 80%. The greatest total phosphorus removal was observed in TFc and TFac, whose values were over 99%. The best removal of ammoniacal nitrogen, 99% was observed in the TFc treatment. Regarding Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn removal, all rapid filtration systems showed better performance when compared to conventional systems. The DF, TFc, and TFac systems showed over 90% removal of most metals evaluated, while the FP and BF treatments presented values below 50% for most metals, and in the BFD system, the removal values were below 80% for most metals. The results indicate that rapid filtration systems were better at removing all evaluated parameters when compared to conventional systems.

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Abbreviations

BF:

Biological filter

BFD:

Biological filter with recirculation and decantation

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

DF:

Double filtration

DSF:

Downward sand filter

FP:

Facultative pond

TFac:

Triple filtration with activated carbon

TFc:

Triple filtration with clinoptilolite

UGF:

Upward gravel filter

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Acknowledgements

The authors received financial support from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 and Programa Paranaense de Pesquisas em Saneamento Ambiental (Fundação Araucaria/SANEPAR) – Finance Code 198/2019.

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Cleber Pinto da Silva: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, resources, formal analysis, writing - original draft, writing - reviewing & editing. Sandro Xavier de Campos: supervision, funding acquisition, writing - reviewing & editing.

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Correspondence to Cleber Pinto da Silva.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Gerald Thouand

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da Silva, C.P., de Campos, S.X. The effects of anaerobic reactor post-treatments by rapid filtration systems and conventional techniques. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 61870–61880 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16350-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16350-8

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