Biodegradation of COD from wool processing plant effluent utilizing low-cost sequencing batch reactor

Abstract

The processing of wool fibre were carried out in accordance with the standard production quality which emphasized on shrink-proof and increased washability by the changing the wools’ physical properties. Commonly, the properties alterations were based on the use of chemicals. This explained the high amount of chemical oxygen demand (COD) content of 1441 ± 26.58 mg/L present in the plant effluent. Hence, this study was carried out to investigate the COD biodegradation utilizing activated sludge cultured in sequencing batch reactor (SBR). A step-by-step feeding approach was chosen during the acclimatization phase to allow gradual adaptation of the bacteria in activated sludge prior to the introduction to the actual concentration of the plant wastewater. Subsequently, the effect of the inoculation of effective micro-organism (EM) at various volumetric loading ratio of wastewater to activated sludge was also investigated. During acclimatization, the outcome of 87–92% of COD removal was achieved. Results showed that the volumetric loading ratio of 1.2 had 80% COD removal with the final concentration of 175 mg/L. In addition, it was found that EM significantly increased the COD biodegradation rates of SBR.

Keywords:

• Biodegradation
• Wool-processing wastewater
• Activated sludge
• SBR
• COD biodegradation

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance provided by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, project no. FRGS/1/2013/TK07/UMT/01/1 for the support of this study.

Notes

Presented at The 2nd IWA Malaysia Young Water Professionals Conference 2015 (YWP15) Aspiring Beyond Water Solution, March 17–20, 2015, Langkawi Island, Malaysia