Nutrient removal in sequential batch reactor fed with effluent produced in primary sludge hydrolytic digester

Author(s)

André Luiz da Silva Salgado Coelho

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC/SBD)
• Defense date: 2005-05-13

Examining board members

Eugenio Foresti; José Roberto Campos; Bruno Coraucci Filho; Eduardo Cleto Pires; Roque Passos Piveli

• Advisor: Eugenio Foresti

Abstract

This thesis presents the results obtained with the use of effluent produced in primary sludge hydrolytic digester for nutrient removal in sequential batch reactor (SBR) treating effluents from an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. Two bench scale studies were developed. The first one consisted in verifying the best operational condition to produce volatile fatty acids (VFA) in the primary sludge hydrolytic reactor; the second one aimed to evaluate the sequential batch reactor (SBR) performances in the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus. In this operational condition, VFA from the liquid phase of the hydrolytic reactor was applied as external carbon source. The results from the first study permitted to verify that the VFA production in the HSR was proportional to the application rate (AR). The best VFA production was obtained for sludge retention time (SRT) of two days. In the second study, the best C/N ratio for the denitrification process was found to be close to 3, with denitrification efficiency higher than 70%. In this condition, phosphorus removal efficiency was approximately 25%. However, nitrogen removal was deeply affected by the high concentration of ammonium nitrogen in the liquid phase of the hydrolyzed sludge that remains unaltered in the SBR. Consequently, the use of such endogenous carbon source for denitrification needs further development in order to be applied in full-scale treatment systems. (AU)