Feasibility Study of Anaerobic Baffled Reactor Coupled with Anaerobic Filter Followed by Membrane Filtration for Wastewater Treatment

Aamir Khan; Sher Jamal Khan; Waheed Miran; Waqas Qamar Zaman; Alia Aslam; Hafiz Muhammad Aamir Shahzad

doi:10.3390/membranes13010079

Feasibility Study of Anaerobic Baffled Reactor Coupled with Anaerobic Filter Followed by Membrane Filtration for Wastewater Treatment

Membranes (Basel). 2023 Jan 8;13(1):79. doi: 10.3390/membranes13010079.

Authors

Aamir Khan¹, Sher Jamal Khan¹, Waheed Miran², Waqas Qamar Zaman¹, Alia Aslam¹, Hafiz Muhammad Aamir Shahzad¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Sector H-12, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
² School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Sector H-12, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.

Abstract

The performance of a Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System (DWTS) comprising an Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) and an Anaerobic Filter (AF) and Membrane Filtration (MF) module was studied for domestic wastewater treatment. The efficiency of the system was evaluated by running ABR at four different HRTs (14, 12, 10, and 8 h) resulting in COD removal efficiencies of 74, 72, 69, and 65%, respectively. The performance of AF using four different filtration media, i.e., PVC pipe (25 mm), PVC pipe (20 mm), PVC pipe (15 mm), and Kaldnes K3, was determined at optimized HRT (12 h). Among all the filtration media tested, the highest performance efficiency of the system was found with the PVC pipe (20 mm), which showed COD, TP, and TKN removal of 79, 32, and 63%, respectively. The efficacy of the system was proven via significant COD and turbidity removal of 94.6 and 87.2%, respectively, by the combined system.

Keywords: Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System (DWTS); anaerobic baffled reactor; anaerobic filter; woven fiber microfiltration.

Grants and funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from WaterAid Pakistan (WAP) and research funding from the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST).