Recent progress in integrated fixed-film activated sludge process for wastewater treatment: A review

Waqas, Sharjeel; Bilad, Muhammad Roil; Man, Zakaria; Wibisono, Yusuf; Jaafar, Juhana; Mahlia, T.M.I.; Khan, Asim Laeeq; Aslam, Muhammad

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110718

Cited by 138 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 192 publications

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“…Figure (3) shows BOD removal efficiency, in start-up stage, the removal efficiency was low at the beginning as bacteria needed time to be adapted to the new medium. After two weeks of the start-up stage, the removal efficiency ranged between 62 -87%.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance of Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) under Variable Organic Load

Elawwad¹,

Abdelkarim²,

Edward³

2021

World Congress on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering

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In this research, a pilot plant was constructed and operated using the Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) to study its performance for municipal wastewater treatment. The experimental work was conducted at Zenien WWTP under variable organic loads. The system was operated under ambient temperature between 16 and 28 °C. The media used in the pilot plant was of the type (FAB) with a specific surface area of 400 m 2 /m 3 and occupied 50% of the reactor's volume. The solid retention time (SRT) was 15 days during the start-up stage, then reduced to 10 days for the rest of the experiments, pH was (6.2 -7.8), the flow rate was (3.61 L/hr), hydraulic retention time (HRT) was around 6 hrs over the whole experiment. The pilot plant was operated in stages each with a different organic load and lasted for about 60 days. The pilot plant proved its efficiency in wastewater treatment using IFAS system. Under low organic load, the BOD, COD and TSS removal reached 90%, 88% and 94.6% respectively. Under medium organic load, the BOD, COD and TSS removal reached 93%, 87%, and 87.8%, respectively.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge System (IFAS) is a hybrid system considered as one of the solutions that can enable us to enhance the existing wastewater treatment plants [3]. It combines both the suspended and attached growth in the same reactor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) under Variable Organic Load

Elawwad¹,

Abdelkarim²,

Edward³

2021

World Congress on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering

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“…The effluent ammonium concentration was as low as 0.03 ± 0.01 mg/L for both the RBC and RBC-ME, indicating a proficient nitrification process. An increase in the discharge nitrate value can be ascribed to the nitrifying bacteria activity [3]. Some reports have described that an RBC can undergo aerobic denitrification.…”

Section: Biological Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Suspended flocs (employed in the conventional activated sludge (CAS) process) and attached biofilm (employed in trickling filters and rotating biological contactor (RBC)) are the two types of aggregates. Both the suspended flocs and the attached biofilm processes are established in full-scale wastewater treatment processes [3]. RBC-also referred to as biofilm reactors-offers a substitute to the CAS process [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Membrane Filtration as Post-Treatment of Rotating Biological Contactor for Wastewater Treatment

et al. 2021

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A rotating biological contactor (RBC) offers a low energy footprint but suffers from performance instability, making it less popular for domestic wastewater treatment. This paper presents a study on an RBC integrated with membrane technology in which membrane filtration was used as a post-treatment step (RBC–ME) to achieve enhanced biological performance. The RBC and RBC–ME systems were operated under different hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 12, 18, 24, and 48 h, and the effects of HRT on biological performance and effluent filterability were assessed. The results show that RBC–ME demonstrates superior biological performance than the standalone RBC. The RBC–ME bioreactor achieved 87.9 ± 3.2% of chemical oxygen demand (COD), 98.9 ± 1.1% ammonium, 45.2 ± 0.7% total nitrogen (TN), and 97.9 ± 0.1% turbidity removals. A comparison of the HRTs showed that COD and TN removal efficiency was the highest at 48 h, with 92.4 ± 2.4% and 48.6 ± 1.3% removal efficiencies, respectively. The longer HRTs also lead to better RBC effluent filterability. The steady-state permeability increased respectively by 2.4%, 9.5%, and 19.1% at HRTs of 18, 24, and 48 h, compared to 12 h. Our analysis of membrane fouling shows that fouling resistance decreased at higher HRTs. Overall, RBC–ME offered a promising alternative for traditional suspended growth processes with higher microbial activity and enhanced biological performance, which is in line with the requirements of sustainable development and environment-friendly treatment.

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“…DPR can remove phosphorus and nitrite/nitrate simultaneously with limited chemical oxygen demand (COD) and reduced aeration, but it demands complicated control without practical application so far (Jin et al, 2017). Some variants of existing mature technologies such as integrated fixed-film activated sludge process (Waqas et al, 2020), and sequencing batch membrane photobioreactor seem more promising for rapid full-scale application (Lau et al, 2019;Sheng et al, 2017)In practice, nitrogen removal from municipal wastewater still relies on biological nitrification and denitrification while phosphorus removal depends on either enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) or chemical precipitation by aluminium, ferric or calcium salts. EBPR is more environmentally friendly without or with little chemical consumption, but it has relatively lower phosphorus removal efficiency and less performance stability compared with chemical precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upgrading a large and centralised municipal wastewater treatment plant with sequencing batch reactor technology for integrated nutrient removal and phosphorus recovery: Environmental and economic life cycle performance

Rashid

Liu

Zhang

2020

Science of The Total Environment

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Although nutrient removal and recovery from municipal wastewater are desirable to protect phosphorus resource and water-bodies from eutrophication, it is unclear how much environmental and economic benefits and burdens it might cause. This study evaluated the environmental and economic life cycle performance of three different upgraded Processes A, B and C with commercially available technologies for nutrient removal and phosphorus recovery based on an existing Malaysian wastewater treatment plant with a sequencing batch reactor technology and diluted municipal wastewater. It is found that the integration of nutrient removal, phosphorus recovery and electricity generation in all upgraded processes reduced eutrophication potential by 62-76%, and global warming potential by 7-22%, which, however, were gained at the cost of increases in human toxicity, acidification, abiotic depletion (fossil fuel) and freshwater ecotoxicity potentials by an average of 23%. New technologies for nutrient removal and phosphorus recovery are thus needed to achieve holistic rather than some environmental benefits at the expense of others. In addition, the study on two different functional units (FU), i.e. per m 3 treated wastewater and per kg struvite recovered, shows that FU affected environmental assessment results, but the upgraded Process C had the least overall environmental burden with either of FUs, suggesting the necessity to use different functional units when comparing and selecting different technologies with two functions such as wastewater treatment and struvite production to confirm the best process configuration. The total life cycle costs of Processes A, B and C were 10.7%, 29.8% and 28.1%, respectively, higher than the existing process due to increased capital and operating costs. Therefore, a tradeoff between environmental benefits and cost has to be balanced for technology selection or new integrated technologies have to be developed to achieve environmentally sustainable wastewater treatment economically.

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Recent progress in integrated fixed-film activated sludge process for wastewater treatment: A review

Cited by 138 publications

References 192 publications

Performance of Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) under Variable Organic Load

Performance of Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) under Variable Organic Load

Membrane Filtration as Post-Treatment of Rotating Biological Contactor for Wastewater Treatment

Upgrading a large and centralised municipal wastewater treatment plant with sequencing batch reactor technology for integrated nutrient removal and phosphorus recovery: Environmental and economic life cycle performance

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