Study of nitrogen and organics removal in sequencing batch reactor (SBR) using hybrid media

The removal of nitrogen and organics in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) using hybrid media were investigated in this work. The hybrid media was made by the use of polyurethane foam (PU) cubes and powdered activated carbon (PAC). The function of activated carbon of hybrid media was to offer a suitable active site, which was able to absorb organic substances and ammonia, as well as that of PU was to provide an appropriated surface onto which biomass could be attached and grown. A laboratory-scale moving-bed sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was used for investigating the efficiency of hybrid media. The removal of nitrogen and organics for synthetic wastewater (COD; 490-1,627 mg/L, NH4(+)-N; 180-210 mg/L) were evaluated at different COD/N ratio and different anoxic phase conditions, respectively. The system was operated with the organic loading rate (OLR) of 0.1, 0.16, 0.24, and 0.28 kg COD/m3 day, respectively. Each mode based on OLR was divided as the periods of 45 days of operation time, except for third mode that was operated during 30 days. After acclimatization period, effluent total COD concentrations slightly decreased and the removal efficiency of organics increased to about 90% (COD; 70 mg/L) after 60 days and achieved 98% (COD; 30 mg/L) at the end of experiments. The organics reduction seemed to be less affected by shock loading since high organic loads did not affect the removal efficiency. The NIH4(+)-N concentrations in effluent showed almost lower than 1 mg/L and NO3(-)-N concentrations were high (150 mg/L) during a very low C/N ratio (C/N=2). Over 90% of T-N removal efficiency (T-N; 16 mg/L) was obtained during the last 20 days of the operation after controlling the COD/N ratio (C/N=7). The mixing condition and COD/N ratio at anoxic phase were determined as a main operating factors. In future, the optimal operating conditions of SBR system with hybrid media will be investigated from the view of maintaining a sufficient biomass to the hybrid media under the vigorous mixing conditions.