2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium

2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium

Decreasing Solid Retention Time of Aerobic Granular Sludge for Improved Wastewater Treatment

Decreasing Solid Retention Time of Aerobic Granular Sludge for Improved Wastewater Treatment

PROJECT NUMBER: 28 | AUTHOR: Sadie Jonson​, Geology and Geological Engineering

MENTOR: Tzahi Cath, Civil and Environmental Engineering

GRADUATE STUDENT MENTOR: Rudy Maltos, Civil and Environmental Engineering

ABSTRACT

Wastewater treatment has been crucial to the development of cities and reducing pollution of the environment. However, many current wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) were built in the 1970’s and 80’s and require upgrades or costly expansions to accommodate increasing wastewater flows and removal of emerging contaminants. One method that can be employed at WWTPs to increase capacity is an aerobic granular sludge (AGS) treatment process. AGS is a dense microbial community that consumes carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus and settles quickly, allowing WWTPs to treat more wastewater without expanding their treatment footprint. One problem that currently prevents WWTPs from adopting AGS is the required high solid retention time (SRT), the average amount of time that the biosolid spends in the treatment unit. Typical AGS systems require close to 6 months to develop. Dense AGS settles quickly and efficiently to remove organics and nutrients from the wastewater. The study that I am conducting investigates the removal of poor settling floc that prevents the formation of AGS. To reduce AGS formation time while maintaining a low SRT, a novel hydraulic selector (HS) has been developed in our research to remove poor settling floc. This hydraulic selector acts as a sludge vacuum system suspended within the bioreactor, to selectively remove poor settling floc allowing AGS to develop rapidly and substantially increase the settling velocity of the remaining floc. Results have shown that the use of a HS has helped to decrease the SRT of the bioreactor and promoted the generation of AGS within 60 days, days, resulting in xx% potential increase in the capacity of existing capacity of WWTPs.

PRESENTATION

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sadie is a sophomore undergraduate student at Mines studying Geological Engineering. She first became involved in her research through the FIRST research fellowship at Mines in the fall of 2019, and has continued to pursue her interests in research and in the realm of water and wastewater availability and quality at the Mines’ Park wastewater lab. She is currently preparing to present her research at the 2021 CUR’s Posters on the Hill event at the end of April.

1 Comment

  1. Super cool project. Its a problem most people don’t think about but it’s critical to infrastructure and most systems need update soon.
    Thank you!

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