A pilot scale study on treatment of Sewage by aerobic sbr and sbbr Followed by uvc led disinfection for Reuse

Abstract

The presence of numerous contaminants in wastewaters and their impending threats on the ecosystem has drawn a significant attention from the scientific community in recent years. Domestic wastewater generated in a community is to be properly treated to reduce wastewater footprint and is to be reused to meet the needs of rapid urbanization along with population growth. After the breakthrough study conducted by Dr. Gilbert Fowler in 1913, conventional activated sludge process (ASP) is widely used for sewage treatment despite specific drawbacks namely requirement of large reactor volumes, low sludge settling velocity and high excess bio-sludge production. On the other hand, sequencing batch reactor (SBR) has lesser footprint but generates excess sludge with high sludge volume index. As a solution to these problems, bio-carriers can be added to the aeration tank or SBR. This led to the development of sequencing batch biofilm reactor (SBBR), which effectively reduces the foot print, sludge production and improves the effluent quality. The present study aimed to evaluate the performance of SBR and SBBR for the treatment of sewage followed by UVC-LED disinfection for reuse. Four laboratory-scale reactors viz., SBR (R1), SBBR with kaldnes media (R2), SBBR with polypropylene fibers (R3) and SBBR with acrylic bio-fringe (R4) were fabricated for a total capacity of 10.0 L. The performance of various bio-carriers namely conventional kaldnes media, polypropylene fibers and acrylic bio-fringe has been studied. Based on the laboratory-scale results, a novel and compact pilot-scale reactor was designed and fabricated for a capacity of 6000 L for simultaneous organics and nutrients removal. newline newline newline