Application of contact stabilization activated sludge for enhancing biological phosphorus removal (EBPR)‎ in domestic wastewater

Abstract EN

The experiment has been performed in order to investigate the effect of using contact stabilization activated sludge as an application of enhancing biological phosphorous removal (EBPR) by using contact tank as a phosphorus uptake zone and using thickening tank as a phosphorus release zone.

The study involved the construction of a pilot plant which was setup in Quhafa waste water treatment plant (WWTP) that included contact, final sedimentation, stabilization and thickening tanks, respectively with two returns sludge in this system one of them to contact tank and another to stabilization tank.

Then observation of the uptake and release of total phosphorus by achievement through two batch test using sludge samples from thickener and final sedimentations.

Results showed the removal efficiencies of COD, BOD and TP for this pilot plant with the range of 94%, 85.44% and 80.54%, respectively.

On the other hand the results of batch tests showed that the reason of high ability of phosphorus removal for this pilot plant related to the high performance of microorganisms for phosphorus accumulating.

Finally the mechanism of this pilot plant depends on the removal of the phosphorus from the domestic waste water as a concentrated TP solution from the supernatant above the thickening zone not through waste sludge like traditional systems.