Stability of expanded granular sludge bed process for terylene artificial silk printing and dyeing wastewater treatment

Terylene artificial silk printing and dyeing wastewater(TPD wastewater), containing averaged 710 mg/L terephthalic acid(TA) as the main carbon source and the character pollutant, was subjected to expanded granular sludge bed(EGSB) process. The stability of the EGSB process was firstly conducted by laboratory experiment. TA ionization was the predominated factor influencing the acid-base balance of the system. High concentration of TA in wastewater resulted in sufficient buffering capacity to neutralize the volatile fatty acids(VFA) generated from substrate degradation and provided strong base for anaerobic system to resist the pH decrease below 6.5. VFA and UFA caused almost no inhibition on the anaerobic process and biogas production except that pH was below 6.35 and VFA was at its maximum value. Along with the granulating of the activated sludge, the efficiency of organic removal and production rate of biogas increased gradually and became more stable. After start-up, the efficiency of COD removal increased to 57%—64%, pH stabilized in a range of 7.99—8.04, and production rate of biogas was relatively high and stable. Sludge granulating, suitable influent of pH and loading were responsible for the EGSB stability. The variation of VFA concentration only resulted in neglectable rebound of pH, and the inhibition from VFA could be ignored in EGSB. The EGSB reactor was stable for TPD wastewater treatment.

Biodegradability of terephthalic acid in terylene artificial silk printing and dyeing wastewater

As the characteristic pollutant, terephthalic acid(TA)was in charge of 40%—78% of the total COD of terylene artificial silk printing and dyeing wastewater(TPW-water). The studies on biodegradability of TA were conducted in a serial of activated sludge reactors with TPW-water. TA appeared to be readily biodegradable with removal efficiency over 96.5% under aerobic conditions, hardly biodegradable with removal efficiency below 10% under anoxic conditions and slowly biodegradable with a turnover between 31.4% and 56.0% under anaerobic conditions. TA also accounted for the majority of BOD in TPW-water. The process combined by anoxic, anaerobic and aerobic activated sludge reactor was suitable for TA degradation and TPW-water treatment. Further, the aerobic process was essentially much more effective than the anaerobic or anoxic one to degrade TA in TPW-water.

Production and application of a novel bioflocculant by multiple-microorganism consortia using brewery wastewater as carbon source

The flocculating activity of a novel bioflocculant MMF1 produced by multiple-microorganism consortia MM1 was investigated. MM1 was composed of strain BAFRT4 identified as Staphylococcus sp. and strain CYGS1 identified as Pseudomonas sp. The flocculating activity of MMF1 isolated from the screening medium was 82.9%, which is remarkably higher than that of the bioflocculant produced by either of the strains under the same condition. Brewery wastewater was also used as the carbon source for MM1, and the cost-effective production medium for MM1 mainly comprised 1.0 L brewery water （chemical oxygen demand （COD） 5000 mg/L）, 0.5 g/L urea, 0.5 g/L yeast extract, and 0.2 g/L （NH4）2SO4. The optimal conditions for the production of MMF1 was inoculum size 2%, initial pH 6.0, cultivating temperature 30℃, and shaking speed 160 r/min, under which the flocculating activity of the MMF1 reached 96.8%. Fifteen grams of purified bioflocculant could be recovered from 1.0 L of fermentation broth. MMF1 was identified as a macromolecular substance containing both protein and polysaccharide. It showed good flocculating performance in treating indigotin printing and dyeing wastewater, and the maximal removal efficiencies of COD and chroma were 79.2% and 86.5%, respectively.