Abstract
Since the 1950s, reactors using algal-bacterial polycultures have been engineered by researchers to treat wastewater. The symbiotic relationship between algae and bacteria accommodates energy-efficient wastewater treatment by eliminating artificial aeration. Here, we investigated the applicability of a novel algal-based system using two polycultures to treat primary-settled municipal wastewater under field conditions in a winter climate (average daily temperature: 4–16.5 °C). The two polycultures were cultured in two closed 700L bioreactors deployed at a local wastewater treatment plant in Las Cruces, NM, United States. The Ammoniacal nitrogen and phosphate concentrations and OD750 of the two reactors were analyzed daily. The BOD5 in the reactors were analyzed once in two days. The samples from the two reactors were analyzed over 44 days from January to March in 2018. The culture in reactor 1 attained average ammoniacal nitrogen, phosphate, and BOD5 removals of 99.3%, 70.1%, and 70.0% respectively in a single step within five days. The corresponding efficiencies for reactor 2 were 44.3%, 47.5%, and 50.7%. The average batch processing times for reactor 1 and reactor 2 were 1.02 and 4.02 days respectively. This paper confirms the ability of both the polycultures to treat primary-settled wastewater in a single step.
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Abeysiriwardana-Arachchige, I.S.A., Chapman, W., Nirmalakhandan, N. (2020). Algal Wastewater Treatment: Study of Polyculture in Fed-Batch Mode in a Winter Climate. In: Dissanayake, R., Mendis, P. (eds) ICSBE 2018. ICSBE 2018. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering , vol 44. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9749-3_10
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