Biological treatment of wastewater from sugar production process by using three-phase fluidized bed reactor

The biodegradation of wastewater from the sugar industry is investigated in a three-phase biological fluidized bed reactor. In the inoculation experiment, the immobilized biofilm was found to keep dominant over the suspended biomass, and a stable biofilm of 175 microns thick was formed after 12 days. The continuous experiments for biodegradation of wastewater showed that, under the operation with hydraulic retention time of 3 h, the average COD and NH 3-N removals reached to 85% and 80%, respectively, and the resultant effluent COD and NH3-N achieved the Chinese Discharge Standard of Water Pollutants for Sugar Industry (GB 21909-2008). The experiment for impact load showed that as the influent COD load changed stepwise from 2.3 to 5.1 kgCOD/m3·d, the reactor achieved the treatment effect without being affected in the performance. Finally, tracer experiments were performed to measure the internal circulation and residence time distribution (RTD) of wastewater in the reactor. It was found that the internal circulation of wastewater evidently exists in the reactor. Meanwhile, the RTD characteristics were described with the tanks-in-series model, and under the operating conditions, the calculated model parameter n was ranged from 1.19 to 1.27, which indicated that the flow pattern in the reactor is close to that in a CSTR. The internal circulation causes the organic matters in the influent to be effectively diluted within the reactor, and also promotes the organic matters to be fully degraded, so that the reactor can present high adaptability to the variation of organic load and high removal efficiency to COD and NH 3-N. As a result, the biological fluidized bed reactor is suggested to be a prospective unit for the treatment of wastewater from sugar production process. Copyright © 2011 De Gruyter. All rights reserved.