Influence of Mathematical – Kinetic Models for the Removal of Organics and Nutrients from Municipal Wastewater in Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor

Anjali Barwal¹

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.5 , Issue.8 , pp.66-76, Aug-2019

Online published on Aug 31, 2019

Copyright © Anjali Barwal . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) is a recent solution alternative to conventional wastewater treatment process. In this study, quantitative steady state mathematical kinetic models (Monod, modified Stover-Kinacannon and Michaelis Menten) were used which describes the removal of organics and nutrients in MBBR and its consequences for the principal parameters of the process like effluent quality and oxygen consumption. The model incorporates the mechanisms of diffusive mass transport and substrate utilization kinetics. The model solutions included the concentration profiles, the growth of suspended and attached biomasses and the effluent concentrations of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and total phosphorus (TP). A lab-scale MBBR was set up to verify the three different kinetic model systems. The experimental results of effluent shows a good agreement with model prediction. Data analysis indicates that modified Stover-Kinacannon and Michaelis Menten’s kinetic model can produce the best fit with the experimental results. The correlation between the experimental values of the process variables and the values predicted by the model was found excellent (> 90). The approaches of modeling and experiments presented in this study could be employed for the design of a full-scale MBBR process to remove organic matter and nutrients from wastewaters.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Moving bed biofilm reactor; Kinetics; Organic loading; Removal efficiency; Biofilms; Microbial growth

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