• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.52 no.4
• /
• pp.503-515
• /
• 2014

A lot of existing wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are rebuilt or retrofitted for advanced wastewater treatment processes to cope with reinforced effluent criteria of nitrogen and phosphorous. Moreover, how to treat the wasted sludge from WWTPs has been also issued since the discharge of the wasted sludge into ocean is impossible from 2011 due to the London Convention 97 protocol. These trend changes of WWTPs get a motivation to assess environmental and economic impacts from the construction stage to the waste stage in WWTPs. Therefore, this study focuses on evaluation of environmental and economic impacts of the advanced wastewater treatment processes and waste sludge treatment process by using life cycle assessment. Four advanced wastewater treatment processes of Anaerobic/Anoxic/Oxic ($A_2O$), 5 stages-Bamard Denitrification Phosphate (Bardenpho), Virginia Initiative Plant (VIP), and Modified University of Cape Town (MUCT) are chosen to compare the conventional activated sludge (CAS) and three waste sludge treatment methods of land fill, incineration, and composting are used. To evaluate environmental and economic impacts of each advanced wastewater treatment processes, life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) are conducted based on International organization for standardization (ISO) guidelines. The results clearly represent that the $A_2O$ process with composting shows 52% reduction in the environmental impact than the CAS process with landfill. On the other hand, the MUCT process with composting is able to save 62% of the life cycle cost comparing with the CAS process with landfill. This result suggested the qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluating eco-environmental and economic technologies of advanced treatment processes and also sludge treatment method, where their main influence factors on environmental and economic impacts are analyzed, respectively. The proposed method could be useful for selecting the most efficient and eco-friendly wastewater treatment process and sludge treatment method when retrofitting the existing WWTPs to advanced treatments.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.10a
• /
• pp.450-455
• /
• 2005

To treat wastewater efficiently by a one-step process of nitrogen removal, a new strain of $N_2-producing$ bacteria from $NH{_4}{^+}$ under an aerobic condition was isolated and identified. By 16S-rDNA analysis, the isolate was identified as Enterobacter asburiae with 96% similarity. The isolate shows that the capacity of $N_2$ production under an oxic condition was approximately three times higher than that under an anoxic condition. The optimal conditions (pH, temperature and C/N ratio) of the immobilized isolate for $N_2$ production were found to be 7.0, $30^{\circ}C$ and 5, respectively. Under all the optimum reaction conditions, the removal efficiency of $COD_{Cr}$ and TN reached 56.1 and 60.9%, respectively. The removal rates of $COD_{Cr}$ and TN were highest for the first 2.5 hrs (with the removal $COD_{Cr}$ ratios of 32.1), and afterwards the rates decreased as reaction proceeded. For application of the immobilized isolate to a practical process of ammonium removal, a continuous bioreactor system exhibited a satisfactory performance at HRT of 12.1 hr, in which the effluent concentrations of $NH{_4}{^+}-N$ was measured to be 15.4 mg/L with its removal efficiency of 56.0%. The maximum removal rate of $NH{_4}{^+}-N$ reached 1.6 mg $NH{_4}{^+}-N/L/hr$ at HRT of 12.1 hr (with N loading rate of 0.08 $Kg-N/m^3-carrier/d)$. As a result, the application of the immobilized isolate appears a viable alternative to the nitrification-denitrification processes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.542-548
• /
• 2005

A fluidized bed reactor containing porous media has been known to be effective for nitrogen and organic matters removal in wastewater. The porous media which attached microbes plays important roles in simultaneous nitrification/denitrification (SND) due to coexistence of oxic, anaerobic and anoxic zone. For SND reaction, oxygen and organic substrates should be effectively diffused from wastewater into the intra-carrier zone. However, the overgrowth heterotrophic microbes at the surface of porous media may restrict from substrates diffusion. From these viewpoints, the existence and effect of heterotrophic bacteria at surface of porous media might be the key point for nitrogen removal. A porous media-membrane hybrid process was found to have improved nitrogen removal efficiency, due to stimulated denitrification as well as nitrification. Microelectrode studies revealed that although intra-media denitrification rate in a conventional fluidized bed was limited by organic carbon, this limitation was reduced in the hybrid process, resulting in the increased denitrification rate from 0.5 to $4.2\; mgNO_3-N/L/hr$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.30 no.8
• /
• pp.831-838
• /
• 2008

This study investigated the characteristics of nitrogen removal and microbial community in a lab-scale A$_2$O activated sludge process filled with the fluidized media at an aerebic basin. The change of microbial community was monitored based on quinone profiles of activated sludge according to feeding sewage with/without external carbon source. Low C/N ratio(COD$_{Cr}$/T-N of 1.24) sewage was fed. The obtained results from this study were as follows; Ubiquinone(UQ) in the influent was in the descending order of UQ-8, UQ-10 and UQ-9. Menaquinone(MK) was simpler and much less than UQ. The ratio of UQ/MK was less than 0.41 and the dissimilarity was below 0.26. Without an external carbon source, MK-8 was the dominant species and there were 3 kinds of quinone species and low DQ and EQ values in an anaerobic basin. The ratio of UQ/MK increased to 2.3 in an anoxic basin. In an oxic basin, UQ-7 and UQ-8 were the dominant species. UQ-7 was dominating in suspended microorganisms, while UQ-8 was in attached microorganisms. With an external carbon source addition, MK-8 decreased but UQ-8 increased in an anaerobic basin. So did quinone species, DQ and EQ values. There was also a change in an anoxic basin with the improvement of denitrification. UQ-8 decreased instead, MK-7 and MK-8 increased. UQ/MK ratio decreased 2.3 to 1.4. It means that the dominant species change from Pseudomonas sp. to Bacillus and Micrococcus species. etc. In an oxic basin, UQ-8 replaced UQ-7 in suspended microorganisms and UQ-10 replaced UQ-8 in attached microbials. This seemed related with the growth of Nitrosomonas and Nitrobactor species.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.42-47
• /
• 2006

The biological nutrient treatment is formed with repetition and rearrangement of anaerobic, anoxic and oxic tank. In this case, VFAs is generated in the anaerobic tank and the anoxic tank. The VFAs is an important factor for removal of nitrogen and phosphate and SVI. So, in this study I investigated to find a relationship among the generation rate of the VFAs according to the change of F/M ratio and the characteristic which can eliminate organic matter and nitrogen according to the change of residual concentration of the VFAs and the efficiency of the process and also SVI in wastewater treatment. $A^2/O$ process was used for wastewater treatment. F/M ratio was under the control of the change of MLSS concentration. When the F/M ratio was changed from 0.16 to 0.08 kg-BOD/kg-MLSS/day, the VFAs's production volume increased based on the reduction of F/M ratio in batch reaction. And the residual concentration of the VFAs decreased at first and then increased later. SVI and SS were high when F/M ratio was $0.16kg/kg{\cdot}d$ and showed stable status when F/M ratio decreased $0.11{\sim}0.13kg/kg{\cdot}d$. However, SVI and SS continuously increased with decrease of F/M ratio and were high at $0.08kg/kg{\cdot}d$. In the result of comparison between residual concentration of the VFAs and denitrification rate in anoxic tank, the less residual volume of the VFAs was in anoxic tank, the higher denitrification ratio became. The optimal residual-concentration of the VFAs considering SVI and removal efficiency of nitrogenwas $1.4{\sim}2.2mg/L$. At that time F/M ratio was $0.11{\sim}0.13$ kg-BOD/kg-MLSS/day.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.97-104
• /
• 2010

At present, the biological nutrient removal (BNR) process for removal of nitrogen and phosphorus is being constructing to keep pace with the reinforced standard of effluent quality and the traditional activated sludge process of preexistence is being promoting to retrofit. At the most case of retrofitting, processes are subjected to be under consideration as alternative BNR process for retrofitting. However, process evaluation methods are restricted to compare only treatment efficiency. Therefore, when BNR process apply, process evaluation was needed various method for treatment efficiency as well as sludge production and aeration cost, and all. In this study, the evaluation method of alternative process was suggested for the case for retrofitting S wastewater treatment plant which has been operated the standard activated sludge process. Three BNR processes for evaluation of proper alternatative process were selected and evaluated with suggested method. The selected $A^2$/O, VIP and DNR processes were evaluated using the mathematical model which is time and cost effective as well as gathered objective evaluation criteria. The evaluation between 5 individual criteria was possible including sludge production and energy efficiency as well as treatment performance. The objective final decision method for selection of optimal process was established through the fuzzy inference.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.96-102
• /
• 2014

To meet the reinforced discharge standards, effect of coagulant PAC (Poly aluminium chloride, 10.4% as $Al_2O_3$) on phosphorous removal in advanced wastewater treatment process (a modified $A^2$/O). 15 mg/L of PAC determined by jar-test was added to influent of settling basin in a modified $A^2$/O consists of anaerobic, anoxic, and oxic chamber which contains Bio-clod and porous polyurethane media. Performance of PAC was tested by supernatant after settling. The removal efficiencies of BOD, COD, TP (total phosphorus) and SP (soluble phosphorus) on biological process with PAC were 96.1%, 88.8%, 97.0% and 98.6%, compared with those on biological process without PAC were 95.4%, 72.4%, 71.6% and 59.5% respectively. 18.4% of TP and 39.1% of SP removal efficiency was increased, although increase of BOD and COD removal rate was not significant. Only PAC addition to influent of settling basin in $A^2O$ process can help total phosphorus removal to 0.13 mg/L with following discharge standard.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.10 no.5
• /
• pp.213-226
• /
• 2005

To treat wastewater efficiently by a one-step process of nitrogen removal, a new bacterial strain producing $N_2$ gas from ${NH_4}^+$ under an aerobic condition was isolated and identified. The cell was motile and a Gram-negative rod, and usually occurred in pairs. By 16S-rDNA analysis, the isolated strain was identified as Enterobacter asburiae with 96% similarity. The isolate showed that the capacity of $N_2$ production under an oxic condition was approximately three times higher than that under an anoxic condition. Thus, the consumption of ${NH_4}^+$ by the isolate was significantly different in the metabolism of $N_2$ production under the two different environmental conditions. The optimal conditions of the immobilized isolate for $N_2$ production were found to be pH 7.0, $30^{\circ}C$ and C/N ratio 5, respectively. Under all the optimum reaction conditions, $N_2$ production by the immobilized isolate resulted in reduction of ORP with both the consumption of DO and the drop of pH. The removal efficiencies of $COD_{Cr}$, and TN were 56.1 and 60.9%, respectively. The removal rates of $COD_{Cr}$, and TN were the highest for the first 2.5 hrs with the removal $COD_{Cr}/TN$ ratios of 32.1, and afterwards the rates decreased as reaction proceeded. For application of the immobilized isolate to a practical process of ammonium removal, a continuous operation was executed with a synthetic medium of a low C/N ratio. The continuous bioreactor system exhibited a satisfactory performance at 12.1 hrs of HRT, in which the effluent concentrations of ${NH_4}^+$-N was measured to be 15.4 mg/L with its removal efficiency of 56.0%. The maximum removal rate of ${NH_4}^+$-N reached 1.6 mg ${NH_4}^+$-N/L/hr at 12.1 hrs of HRT(with N loading rate of $0.08\;Kg-N/m^3$-carrier/d). As a result, the application of the immobilized isolate appears a viable alternative to the nitrification-denitrification processes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.610-618
• /
• 2008

It is not easy to compare the treatment processes and find an optimum operating condition by the experiments due to influent conditions, treatment processes, various operational conditions and complex factors in real wastewater treatment system and also need a lot of time and costs. In this paper, the activated sludge models are applied to four principal biological wastewater treatment processes, $A_2O$(anaerobic/anoxic/oxic process), Bardenpho(4 steps), VIP(Virginia Initiative Plant) and UCT(University of Cape Town), and are used to compare their environmental and economic assessment for four key processes. In order to evaluate each processes, a new assessment index which can compare the efficiency of treatment performances in various processes is proposed, which considers both environmental and economic cost. It shows that the proposed index can be used to select the optimum processes among the candidate treatment processes as well as to find the optimum condition in each process. And it can find the change of economic and environmental index under the changes of influent flowrate and aerobic reaction size and predict the optimum index under various operation conditions.

• KSBB Journal
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.317-323
• /
• 2006

This study focused on the availability of wastewater reclamation and reusing system as one of the alternatives against the global water shortage in near future, which system is composed of two treatment steps; first, wastewater is injected into upflow $A^2O$ biofilm process(anaerobic/anoxic/oxic) reactor filled with polyethylene fixed-media, and the effluent of 1st steps continuously passed through downflow nano silver sand filter. The pH of the effluent ranged from 7.39 to 8.06(average 7.84), the $COD_{Mn}$ was $8{\sim}18mg/L$(average 12.1 mg/L), and $BOD_5$ was $2.1{\sim}10.0mg/L$(average 4.9 mg/L), that met all the wastewater reclamation and reusing system criteria. Besides, the SS concentrations of the effluent which was $3{\sim}9mg/L$(average 4.95 mg/L) met the criteria(5 mg/L), showing 94.8% of average removal efficiency. The 99.1% of the average removal efficiency of the E-coliform did not met the criteria(Not detected), which indicates the needs for the following chlorine disinfection treatment with the residual chlorine concentration of above 0.2 mg/L. There are no bacteria on the sand surface coated by nano silver. The removal efficiency of T-N and T-P that could be included into the criteria in the future was 50.3% and 27.2% respectively.