STUDIES ON PYRIDINE AND 2-PICOLINE BIODEGRADATION IN SEQUENCING BATCH, REACTOR

Abstract

Pyridine and 2-Picoline are considered to be versatile raw materials in chemical industry. 2-Picoline is the derivative of pyridine. Because of high toxicity, high oxygen demand and low biodegradability, these compounds are considered as primary pollutants in wastewater. Pyridine and 2-picoline have high toxicity and solubility, and they widely exist in the effluents of industries such as textiles, agro-chemicals, pharmaceuticals, rubber chemicals, adhesives, paints, explosives and disinfectants and so on. The present study deals with the modification in the conventional wastewater treatment for pyridine and 2-picoline. Sequencing batch reactor (SBR) is a promising alternative among the other biological processes. SBR is time-based treatment process technology as compare to the conventional area-based activated sludge processes. This work reports studies on the optimization of SBR for the biodegradation of pyridine and 2-picoline. The effect of operating parameters, namely mixed liquor suspended solids concentration (MLSS), initial substrate loading and aeration time were studied for biodegradation of pyridine. The results revealed that the highest pyridine removal efficiency obtained at optimum conditions (200 mg/1 of initial pyridine concentration, 3010 mg/1 of MLSS concentration) was 95.01%. For the biodegradation of 2-picoline, the effect of sludge retention time (SRT), hydraulic retention time (HRT) have been studied. The results show that the highest 2-picoline removal efficiency obtained at optimum condition of 500 mg/I of initial concentration, 2710 mg/1 of MLSS concentration, 16 d SRT and 16.96 h HRT for instantaneous filling was 87.2%. The settling characteristics were measured in terms of SVI and settleability curve. The, physico-chemical characterization of excess sludge wasted was done to evaluate its utilization as a source of energy.