PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MBBR BASED SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS

Abstract

Water crisis is nowadays one of the most glaring problems that has been staring at us and is becoming more and more piercing day by day. A prime cause of the global water concern is the ever-increasing world population. As populations grow, industrial, agricultural and individual water demands escalate. Besides population, it is also the greater water usage associated with rising living standards that is responsible for increased water demand. The scarcity of water can be largely avoided with better water management practices and water conservation. Among the various alternative technologies to augment freshwater resources, the reuse of wastewater after treatment is a decentralized, environmentally sound solution to overcome the shortage of water. Among the various treatment technologies, Moving Bed Biofllm Reactor (MBBR) is one of the most advanced techniques available for improving the wastewater quality for reuse. Four full scale MBBR plants were studied in the present study which were located at four different locations and were of different capacities. The performance evaluation was carried out by analyzing the various physicochemical parameters of wastewater, their percentage reduction during the course of treatment, treatment efficiency. It was observed that the effluent produced after the treatment was of considerable good quality to be used into irrigation. The highest percent reductions among all four plants for TSS, CUD, BOD, Ammonical Nitrogen as calculated were 93%, 91%, 95% and 90% respectively. The effluent characteristics were found to be satisfactory. Activated Sludge performance on comparison with Moving bed biofilm reactor performance found to comparable in terms of BUD, CUD removal but it lacked in nutrient removal