Biological Treatment of Pharmaceutical Wastewater

• Main Author: Welly , Herumurti
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8740/1/2009%20-%20Biological%20Treatment%20of%20Pharmaceutical%20Wastewater.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8740/

The biological wastewater treatment study was performed to treat non-penicillin pharmaceutical wastewater. The study was conducted in two phases. The Phase I focussed on a preliminary study to determine the feasibility of biological treatment for treating pharmaceutical wastewater. The biological treatment in Phase I consisted of two treatment trains; Train I which consisted of a semi-anaerobic baffle reactor (SABR) followed by an activated sludge process (ASP) reactor while Train 2 consisted of only an ASP reactor. The Phase II was carried out on anaerobic treatment processes. Anaerobic biological treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater was performed using upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) and hybrid upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (HUASB) reactors. The UASB and HUASB reactors were operated under mesophilic (35±2°C) and thermophilic (55±2°C) conditions. Four hydraulic retention times (HRTs) i.e., five, four, three and two days were applied for all reactors. The sludge from an aerobic sewage treatment plant was used as seed biomass in all reactors. In Phase I, the reactors were fed with influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration of 607-1953 mg/L. Train I (SABR-ASP reactor) achieved higher COD removal in treating high strength wastewater (COD 1953 mg/L); however, Train 2 (ASP reactor) achieved higher COD removal in treating low strength wastewater (COD 635 mg/L). The aerobic biomass from a sewage treatment plant was successfully used as seed biomass in aerobic and semi-anaerobic reactors in treating non-penicillin pharmaceutical wastewater. In Phase II, the reactors were fed with low strength influent (COD 458-526 mg/L) and high strength influent (COD 1770-2217 mg!L). The reactors obtained higher COD removals in treating high strength wastewater. The results show that the reactor performance was significantly affected by type of reactor, HRT and temperature. Both mesophilic UASB and HUASB reactors obtained higher COD and biochemical oxygen demand 5 days (BODs) removals in treating pharmaceutical wastewater. The highest average COD and BODs removals were achieved by the mesophilic HUASB reactor treating high strength pharmaceutical wastewater at HRT of five days (average OLR 0.43 g CO DIL-day); average COD removal was 90%, average effluent COD was 133 mg!L, average BODs removal was 97% and average effluent BODs was 51 mg!L. The COD and BODs removals decreased when the HRT was decreased. The concentration of ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N) and total phosphorous (TP) increased during this study whereas the concentration of nitrate-nitrogen (N03-N) was constant and the concentration of total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) slightly reduced. Three kinetic models i.e. Monad, modified Staver-Kincannon and Grau second-order were applied in this study to determine the kinetics of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment using UASB and HUASB reactors. The results of kinetic model analysis indicated that Grau second-order fits well for estimates of kinetic coefficients in all reactors. High R2 values (R2>0.9) were obtained for a and b determinations for all reactors.