Yuansong Wei

Membrane fouling, including foulants and factors, was investigated during hydraulic retention time (HRT) optimization of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) that treated wastewater from the production of antibiotics. The results showed that HRT played an important role in membrane fouling. Trans-membrane pressure (TMP), membrane flux, and resistance were stable at -6 kPa, 76 L m(-2) h(-1) bar(-1), and 4.5 × 10(12) m(-1) when HRT was at 60, 48, and 36 h, respectively. Using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, foulants were identified as carbohydrates and proteins, which correlated with effluent organic matter and effluent chemical oxygen demand (COD) compounds. Therefore, membrane fouling trends would benefit from low supernatant COD (378 mg L(-1)) and a low membrane removal rate (26 %) at a HRT of 36 h. Serious membrane fouling at 72 and 24 h was related to soluble microbial products and extracellular polymeric substances in mixed liquor, respectively. Based on the TMP decrease and flu...

Two kinds of aeration modes, five kinds of amendment were tested in sewage sludge composting. The pile temperature rose to the set temperature(60 degrees C) and could maintain some thermophilic period. The pathogen reduction of sewage sludge compost met with the control standard. Compared with positive forced aeration, the natural aeration combined with positive forced aeration made the pile temperature rise faster and consume less energy. However, the positive forced aeration could accelerate the moisture content reduction and the organic matter degradation of mixtures of sewage sludge and amendment. The moisture content of raw materials affected the composting process very much, and should be less than 80%. The pH value of raw materials need to be adjusted during the sewage sludge composting process.

In Aerobic co-composting of four bulking agents and de-watered sewage sludge, the records of temperature, moisture, organic matter, pH and conductivity with time showed the composting could be successfully processed. The changes of chemical parameters, water soluble organic carbon, nitrate, ammonium and biological parameter Cress Germination Index(GI) with time during the composting process were investigated. Ammonium concentration was found to be an important chemical factor affecting Cress Germination Index and had significant negative correlation with GI which could be used as a good index of compost maturity in this study. The value of ammonium which changed with the initial components in composting would be 0.5-1.4 mg/g at the end of the processes in all composts.

To evaluate the performance of microwave (MW)-chemical hybrid sludge treatment system, a pilot scale MW disintegration unit (treatment capacity of 500L/d) was constructed. The results showed that organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus were effectively released from the MW-pretreated sludge. The values of COD released were 15.91%, 15.07%, 13.83%, 19.35%, and 15.07% for the MW, MW-acid, MW-alkali, MW-H2O2, and MW-H2O2-alkali treatment processes, respectively. Additionally, for a wastewater treatment system with a capacity of 200m(3)/d, when coupled with a MW sludge pretreatment unit, the sludge production and sludge yield were greatly reduced by 38.60% and to 0.35kg VSS/kg CODconsumed, respectively. The total operating cost of the lysis-cryptic growth system was 13.64% lower than that of the CAS system without a MW unit.

Over 1.5 years continuous piloting of a municipal wastewater plant upgraded with a double membrane system (ca. 0.6 m(3) d(-1) of product water produced) have demonstrated the feasibility of achieving high water quality with a water yield of 90% by combining a membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a submerged ultrafiltration membrane followed by a reverse osmosis membrane (RO). The novelty of the proposed treatment scheme consists of the appropriate conditioning of MBR effluent prior to the RO and in recycling the RO concentrates back to the biological unit. All the 15 pharmaceuticals measured in the influent municipal sewage were retained below 100 ng L(-1), a proposed quality parameter, and mostly below detection limits of 10 ng L(-1). The mass balance of the micropollutants shows that these are either degraded or discharged with the excess concentrate, while only minor quantities were found in the excess sludge. The micropollutant load in the concentrate can be significantly reduced by ozonation. A low treated water salinity (<10 mM inorganic salts; 280 ± 70 μS cm(-1)) also confirms that the resulting product has a high water quality. Solids precipitation and inorganic scaling are effectively mitigated by lowering the pH in the RO feed water with CO(2) conditioning, while the concentrate from the RO is recycled to the biological unit where CO(2) is stripped by aeration. This causes precipitation to occur in the bioreactor bulk, where it is much less of a process issue. SiO(2) is the sole exception. Equilibrium modeling of precipitation reactions confirms the effectiveness of this scaling-mitigation approach for CaCO(3) precipitation, calcium phosphate and sulfate minerals.

ABSTRACT The nitrogen removal performance in the combined partial nitritation-anammox (CPNA) process was seriously deteriorated by the nitrate build-up. The purpose of this study was to develop and optimize an in-situ restoring strategy based on hydroxylamine (NH2OH) dosing and solids retention time (SRT) control for the deteriorated CPNA process. Results showed that the 0.55 kgN m−3 d−1 of nitrogen removal rate could be recovered by 20 mgNH2OH L−1 of hydroxylamine dosing and 40 days of SRT control, the nitrate concentration in effluent was decreased from the highest 548.4 mgN L−1 during deterioration to 65.1 mgN L−1 after restoration, and the ratio of NO3−-Nproduced/NH4+-Nconsumed in one SBR cycle was reduced from the highest 87.0% to 9.13% finally. The inhibition of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) by NH2OH dosing alone was reversible because the nitrate build-up occurred again from 106.9 to 287.6 mgN L−1 within just 11 days after NH2OH dosing was stopped. The evolution of the anammox bacteria, ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and NOB from quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays verified the changes of the nitrogen removal performance of the CPNA process and proved that this in-situ restoration strategy could successfully solve the problem of nitrate build-up in the CPNA process.

Over 1.5 years continuous piloting of a municipal wastewater plant upgraded with a double membrane system (ca. 0.6 m(3) d(-1) of product water produced) have demonstrated the feasibility of achieving high water quality with a water yield of 90% by combining a membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a submerged ultrafiltration membrane followed by a reverse osmosis membrane (RO). The novelty of the proposed treatment scheme consists of the appropriate conditioning of MBR effluent prior to the RO and in recycling the RO concentrates back to the biological unit. All the 15 pharmaceuticals measured in the influent municipal sewage were retained below 100 ng L(-1), a proposed quality parameter, and mostly below detection limits of 10 ng L(-1). The mass balance of the micropollutants shows that these are either degraded or discharged with the excess concentrate, while only minor quantities were found in the excess sludge. The micropollutant load in the concentrate can be significantly reduced by ozonation. A low treated water salinity (<10 mM inorganic salts; 280 ± 70 μS cm(-1)) also confirms that the resulting product has a high water quality. Solids precipitation and inorganic scaling are effectively mitigated by lowering the pH in the RO feed water with CO(2) conditioning, while the concentrate from the RO is recycled to the biological unit where CO(2) is stripped by aeration. This causes precipitation to occur in the bioreactor bulk, where it is much less of a process issue. SiO(2) is the sole exception. Equilibrium modeling of precipitation reactions confirms the effectiveness of this scaling-mitigation approach for CaCO(3) precipitation, calcium phosphate and sulfate minerals.

Xiashan Reservoir is the largest reservoir in the Shandong peninsula and the major water supply source for urban, industry and agriculture in Weifang, Shandong Province. In the upstream region of Xiashan Reservoir, its industry development ranged in the top three among 12 districts and counties of Weifang from 1995 to 2004. This study investigated changes of water quality in Xiashan

Considering characteristics of breaking down H(2)O(2) into water and molecular oxygen by catalase in waste activated sludge (WAS), the effect of H(2)O(2) dosing strategy on sludge pretreatment by the advanced oxidation process (AOP) of microwave-H(2)O(2) was investigated by batch experiments for optimizing H(2)O(2) dosage. Results showed that the catalase in sludge was active at the low temperature range between 15 degrees C and 45 degrees C, and gradually lost activity from 60 degrees C to 80 degrees C. Therefore, the H(2)O(2) was dosed at 80 degrees C, to which the waste activated sludge was first heated by the microwave (MW), and then the sludge dosed with H(2)O(2) was continuously heated till 100 degrees C by the microwave. Results at different H(2)O(2) dosages showed that the higher the H(2)O(2) dosing ratio was, the more the SCOD and total organic carbon (TOC) were released into the supernatant, and the optimum range of H(2)O(2)/TCOD ratio should be between 0.1 and 1.0. The percentages of consumed H(2)O(2) in the AOP of microwave and H(2)O(2) treating the WAS were 25.38%, 22.53%, 14.82%, 13.61% and 19.63% at different H(2)O(2)/TCOD dosing ratios of 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, respectively. Along with the increasing H(2)O(2)/TCOD ratio, the contents of TCOD on particles, soluble substances and mineralization increased and the TCOD distribution on solids decreased.

A microwave-H2O2 process for sludge pretreatment exhibited high efficiencies of releasing organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus, but large quantities of H2O2 residues were detected. A uniform design method was thus employed in this study to further optimize H2O2 dosage by investigating effects of pH and H2O2 dosage on the amount of H2O2 residue and releases of organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus. A regression model was established with pH and H2O2 dosage as the independent variables, and H2O2 residue and releases of organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus as the dependent variables. In the optimized microwave-H2O2 process, the pH value of the sludge was firstly adjusted to 11.0, then the sludge was heated to 80 degrees C and H2O2 was dosed at a H2O2:mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) ratio of 0.2, and the sludge was finally heated to 100 degrees C by microwave irradiation. Compared to the microwave-H2O2 process without optimization, the H2O2 dosage and the utilization rate of H2O2 in the optimized microwave-H2O2 process were reduced by 80% and greatly improved by 3.87 times, respectively, when the H2O2:MLSS dosage ratio was decreased from 1.0 to 0.2, resulting in nearly the same release rate of soluble chemical oxygen demand in the microwave-H2O2 process without optimization at H2O2:MLSS ratio of 0.5.