Biological sulphate removal in an upflow packed bed reactor

Mine waters and industrial effluents with high sulphate concentrations create a disposal problem in terms of excess mineralization of surface waters. Removal of sulphate can be achieved by various processes including biological techniques, all of which involve appreciable costs. The purpose of this investigation was to improve on known biological methods for the removal of sulphate. Good sulphate removal was obtained by providing anaerobic conditions on a solid medium and maintaining a low hydrogen sulphide concentration by recirculating the water through a photosynthetic reactor for sulphur production.     

Electrochemical recovery of hydrogen from coal acid mine drainage for the enhancement of sulphate reduction using grass cellulose as carbon source

This paper investigates the generation of hydrogen at the cathode in an electrolytic cell treating acid mine drainage (AMD) and the effect of the generated hydrogen on the biological removal of sulphate using grass cellulose. The performance of the bioreactors was assessed by means of sulphate reduction, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and volatile fatty acid (VFA) utilization. To this end, two batch reactors, A, B were operated similarly with the exception of the addition of hydrogen. Reactor A received no hydrogen to act as a control, while reactor B received hydrogen for the experimental duration. Further experiments were conducted to investigate the feasibility of sulphide oxidation to elemental sulphur using air. The results show that during sulphide oxidation, the sulphate concentration decreased from 364 to 183 mg/L, a decrease of 50% and the concentration of sulphide decreased from 163 to 70 mg/L, a decrease of 57%.     

Simultaneous removal of carbon and nutrients from an industrial estate wastewater in a single up-flow aerobic/anoxic sludge bed (UAASB) bioreactor

Simultaneous removal of carbon and nutrients (CNP) in a single bioreactor is highly significant for energy consumption and control of reactor volume. Basically, nutrients removal is dependant to the ratio of biochemical oxygen demand to chemical oxygen demand (BOD₅/COD). Thus, in this study the treatment of an industrial estate wastewater with low BOD₅/COD ratio in an up-flow aerobic/anoxic sludge bed (UAASB) bioreactor, with an intermittent regime in aeration and discharge, was investigated. Hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 12-36 h and aeration time of 40-60 min/h were selected as the operating variables to analyze, optimize and model the process. In order to analyze the process, 13 dependent parameters as the process responses were studied. From the results, it was found, increasing HRT decreases the CNP removal efficiencies. However, by increasing the BOD₅ fraction of the feed, the total COD (TCOD), slowly biodegradable COD (sbCOD), readily biodegradable COD (rbCOD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) removal efficiencies were remarkably increased. Population of heterotrophic, nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria showed good agreement with the results obtained for TCOD and TN removal. The optimum conditions were determined as 12-15 h and 40-60 min/h for HRT and aeration time respectively.