Pilot‐scale anaerobic/anoxic/oxic/oxic biofilm process treating coking wastewater

BACKGROUND: Biological treatment efficiency of coking wastewater is rather poor, especially for chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia‐nitrogen (NH$_{4}^{+}$ ‐N) removal due to its complex composition and high toxicity. RESULTS: A pilot‐scale anaerobic/anoxic/oxic/oxic (A²/O²) biofilm system has been developed to treat coking wastewater, focusing attention on the COD and NH$_{4}^{+}$ ‐N removal efficiencies. Operational results over 239 days showed that hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the system had a great impact on simultaneous removals of COD and NH$_{4}^{+}$ ‐N. At HRT of 116 h, total removal efficiencies of COD and NH$_{4}^{+}$ ‐N were 92.3% and 97.8%, respectively, reaching the First Grade discharge standard for coking wastewater in China. Adequate HRT, anoxic removal of refractory organics and two‐step aerobic bioreactors were considered to be effective measures to obtain satisfactory coking effluent quality using the A²/O² biofilm system. The correlation between removal characteristics of pollutants and spatial distributions of biomass along the height of upflow bioreactors was also revealed. CONCLUSION: The study suggests that it is feasible to apply the A²/O² biofilm process for coking wastewater treatment, achieving desirable effluent quality and steady process performance. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry