ABSTRACT
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the nitrogen assimilation and filtration characteristics of Chlorella vulgaris Beij. when treating domestic wastewaters. Chlorella could assimilate organic nitrogen, ammonia and nitrate in wastewater, and the mean cell residence time (MCRT) to achieve the maximum biomass content in a bioreactor was different for each individual nitrogen source used. The experimental results showed that using nitrate as the only nitrogen source was the most favorable for biomass growth. With ammonia and nitrate coexisting in the aquatic phase, Chlorella possibly utilized ammonia first, and this was unfavorable to subsequent biomass growth. Nitrifying bacteria in wastewaters significantly affected Chlorella growth as they possibly competed with Chlorella in assimilating ammonia and nitrate in domestic wastewater. In a submerged ultrafiltration (UF) membrane module, with an initial concentration of 850 mg/L of Chlorella, the optimized flux was 0.02 m(3)/(m(2)·h), and the filtration cycle was 30 min. A 'dual membrane bioreactor (MBR)' configuration using UF membranes for Chlorella incubation was proposed. MBR1 provides an environment with long MCRT for efficient nitrification. The converted nitrate is assimilated by Chlorella in MBR2 to sustain its growth. UF permeate from MBR1 is bacteria-free and does not affect the growth of Chlorella in MBR2. MCRT of Chlorella growth is controlled by the UF membrane of MBR2, providing the flexibility to adjust variations of nitrogen composition in the wastewater.
Subject(s)
Chlorella vulgaris/chemistry , Nitrogen/isolation & purification , Ultrafiltration/methods , Waste Disposal, Fluid/methods , Water Pollutants, Chemical/isolation & purification , Bioreactors/microbiology , Membranes, Artificial , Nitrates/chemistry , Nitrates/isolation & purification , Nitrogen/metabolism , Quaternary Ammonium Compounds/chemistry , Quaternary Ammonium Compounds/isolation & purification , Wastewater/chemistry , Water Pollutants, Chemical/chemistryABSTRACT
Water shortage has become an emerging environmental issue. Reclamation of the effluent from municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is feasible for meeting the growth of water requirement from industries. In this study, the results of a pilot-plant setting in Futian wastewater treatment plant (Taichung, Taiwan) were presented. Two processes, sand filter - ultrafiltration - reverse osmosis (SF-UF-RO) and sand filter - electrodialysis reversal (SF-EDR), were operated in parallel to evaluate their stability and filtrate quality. It has been noticed that EDR could accept inflow with worse quality and thus required less pretreatment compared with RO. During the operation, EDR required more frequent chemical cleaning (every 3 weeks) than RO did (every 3 months). For the filtrate quality, the desalination efficiency of SF-EDR ranged from 75 to 80% in continuous operation mode, while the conductivity ranged from 100 to 120 µS/cm, with turbidity at 0.8 NTU and total organic carbon at 1.3 mg/L. SF-EDR was less efficient in desalinating the multivalent ions than SF-UF-RO was. However for the monovalent ions, the performances of the two processes were similar to each other. Noticeably, total trihalomethanes in SF-EDR filtrate was lower than that of SF-UF-RO, probably because the polarization effects formed on the concentrated side of the EDR membrane were not significant. At the end of this study, cost analysis was also conducted to compare the capital requirement of building a full-scale wastewater reclamation plant using the two processes. The results showed that using SF-EDR may cost less than using SF-UF-RO, if the users were to accept the filtrate quality of SF-EDR.
