Improved Hybrid Biological Reactor Design Under Mixed-Growth Conditions

Abstract

Wastewater treatment and disposal is a pillar for safeguarding public health and sustaining socioeconomic development. The cost and design efficiency of various wastewater treatment technologies are key factors in the economic value of treated wastewater. However, biological treatment processes are among the most valuable among a vast array of treatment technologies.Biological reactors conventional design procedures are normally sufficient to achieve desired treatment efficiencies while assuming suspended-growth only and attached growth only. The ASP and RBC are typical examples. This assumption of one dominant state of microorganisms has come under increased scrutiny in recent years due to advances in biological processes. For instance, in a fluidized bed biofilm reactor or an integrated film activated sludge reactor, high fluid shear can dislodge attached cells in high quantity and increases the amount of suspended cells. These biofilm reactor, intended by design, may actually be operating like a suspended growth reactor. As such, these reactors have become a bona fide 'hybrid' biological reactors.In hybrid biofilm reactors neither suspended nor biofilm kinetics are dominant. Procedures incorporating both suspended and attached growth kinetics must be used.This paper addresses possible improvement in the design procedure for hybrid reactors using a mathematical model and preliminary results of experimental testing of a hybrid reactor using petrochemical wastewater. The model takes into consideration parameters which were not considered in conventional design procedures such as biofilm diffusional resistance, suspended versus attached microorganisms substrate utilization ratio (biomass ratio in conventional design procedures), hydraulic retention time, and shear loss.

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Author Information
Mohd Elmuntasir Ahmed, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait
Rashed Al-Yaseen, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait

• Category: ACSEE2018

Posted by James Alexander Gordon

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