Treatment of high-load organic wastewater by novel basalt fiber carrier media

Huicheng Ni; Junchao Qian; Muhammad Arslan; Xiangtong Zhou; Zhijun Luo; Jing Wei; Mohamed Gamal El-Din; Zhiren Wu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143760

Treatment of high-load organic wastewater by novel basalt fiber carrier media

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Mar 1:758:143760. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143760. Epub 2020 Nov 26.

Authors

Huicheng Ni¹, Junchao Qian², Muhammad Arslan³, Xiangtong Zhou¹, Zhijun Luo¹, Jing Wei¹, Mohamed Gamal El-Din⁴, Zhiren Wu⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, No. 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Environment Functional Materials, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, No.1 Kerui Road, SuZhou 215009, China.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
⁴ School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, No. 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada. Electronic address: mgamalel-din@ualberta.ca.
⁵ School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, No. 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, China. Electronic address: wuzhiren@ujs.edu.cn.

PMID: 33333304
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143760

Abstract

The carrier medium plays a key role in improving existing remediation potential of conventional biological contact oxidation reactors. In this study, a biological contact oxidation reactor was constructed using basalt fiber (R-BF) as a biological carrier. The bioreactor performance was investigated in terms of reduction in chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonium nitrogen (NH₄⁺-N), and total nitrogen (TN) at organic loadings rate of 15.243 kg/m³·d and nitrogen loading rate of 1.068 kg/m³·d. We found that COD, NH₄⁺-N, and TN were reduced to 99.1%, 97.9%, and 97.8%, respectively. Within the R-BF, a bio-nest was developed which had abundant pores and channels and supported successful movement of nutrients, resulting in high biological activity (55.78%). The microbial communities within the bio-nest were diverse and rich and sludge production during operation was minimal. This makes BF a promising application for wastewater treatment. This research might be useful in the construction of integrated bioreactors that can operate under high organic and nitrogen loadings rates with reduced energy consumption, i.e. 75% in this study.

Keywords: Biological viability; EPS component; Microbial community; Sludge reduction; Spatial structure analysis.