Long term operation of pilot-scale biological nutrient removal process in treating municipal wastewater

The performance of a pilot-scale biological nutrient removal process has been evaluated for 336 days, receiving the real municipal wastewater with a flowrate of 6.8 m3/d. The process incorporated an intermittent aeration reactor for enhancing the effluent quality, and a nitrification reactor packed with the porous polyurethane foam media for supporting the attached-growth of microorganism responsible for nitrification. The observation shows that the process enabled a relatively stable and high performance in both organics and nutrient removals. When the SRT was maintained at 12 days, COD, nitrogen, and phosphorus removals averaged as high as 89% at a loading rate of 0.42–3.95 kg COD/m3 d (corresponding to average influent concentration of 304 mg COD/L), 76% at the loading rate of 0.03–0.27 kg N/m3 d (with 37.1 mg TN/L on average), and 95% at the loading rate of 0.01–0.07 kg TP/m3 d (with 5.4 mg TP/L on average), respectively.