Young Mo Kim

Effect of HRT on the biological pre-denitrification process for the simultaneous removal of toxic pollutants from cokes wastewater

A lab-scale serial anoxic-aerobic reactor for the pre-denitrification process was continuously operated to efficiently and economically treat actual cokes wastewater containing various pollutants, such as phenol, ammonia, thiocyanate and cyanide compounds. The biodegradation efficiencies of the pollutants were examined by changing hydraulic retention time (HRT) as a main operating variable. The long-term operation of the pre-denitrification process reactor showed that approximately 100% phenol, approximately 100% free cyanide, approximately 100% SCN(-), 97% ammonia, 85% COD, 84% TOC (total organic carbon) and 83% TN (total nitrogen) were removed at HRT above 11.9h. Removal efficiency of total cyanides significantly decreased with a decrease in the HRT. Free cyanide and some of total cyanides were removed in anoxic reactor, whereas thiocyanate was removed in aerobic reactor. Phenol was completely removed under successive anoxic and aerobic conditions. Although actual cokes wastewater contained high concentrations of various toxic pollutants, the pre-denitrification process showed stable and successful performances in both nitrification and denitrification reactions.

Investigation of the sludge reduction mechanism in the anaerobic side-stream reactor process using several control biological wastewater treatment processes

To investigate the mechanism of sludge reduction in the anaerobic side-stream reactor (SSR) process, activated sludge with five different sludge reduction schemes were studied side-by-side in the laboratory. These are activated sludge with: 1) aerobic SSR, 2) anaerobic SSR, 3) aerobic digester, 4) anaerobic digester, and 5) no sludge wastage. The system with anaerobic SSR (system #2) was the focus of this study and four other systems served as control processes with different functions and purposes. Both mathematical and experimental approaches were made to determine solids retention time (SRT) and sludge yield for the anaerobic SSR process. The results showed that the anaerobic SSR process produced the lowest solids generation, indicating that sludge organic fractions degraded in this system are larger than other systems that possess only aerobic or anaerobic mode. Among three systems that involved long SRT (system #1, #2, and #5), it was only system #2 that showed stable sludge settling and effluent quality, indicating that efficient sludge reduction in this process occurred along with continuous generation of normal sludge flocs. This observation was further supported by batch anaerobic and aerobic digestion data. Batch digestion on sludges collected after 109 days of operation clearly demonstrated that both anaerobically and aerobically digestible materials were removed in activated sludge with anaerobic SSR. In contrast, sludge reduction in the aerobic SSR process or no wastage system was achieved by removal of mainly aerobically digestible materials. All these results led us to conclude that repeating sludge under both feast/fasting and anaerobic/aerobic conditions (i.e., activated sludge with anaerobic SSR) is necessary to achieve the highest biological solids reduction with normal wastewater treatment performance.

Effects of free cyanide on microbial communities and biological carbon and nitrogen removal performance in the industrial activated sludge process.

The changes in process performance and microbial communities under free cyanide (CN(-)) were investigated in a lab-scale activated sludge process treating industrial wastewater. The performance of phenol degradation did not appear to be adversely affected by increases in CN(-) concentrations. In contrast, CN(-) was found to have an inhibitory effect on SCN(-) biodegradation, resulting in the increase of TOC and COD concentrations. Nitratation also appeared to be inhibited at CN(-) concentrations in excess of 1.0 mg/L, confirming that nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) is more sensitive to the CN(-) toxicity than ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB). After CN(-) loads were stopped, SCN(-) removal, denitrification, and nitrification inhibited by CN(-) were recovered to performance efficiency of more than 98%. The AOB and NOB communities in the aerobic reactor were analyzed by terminal restriction fragment length (T-RFLP) and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). Nitrosomonas europaea lineage was the predominant AOB at all samples during the operation, but an obvious change was observed in the diversity of AOB at the shock loading of 30 and 50 mg/L CN(-), resulting in Nitrosospira sp. becoming dominant. We also observed coexisting Nitrospira and Nitrobacter genera for NOB. The increase of CN(-) loading seemed to change the balance between Nitrospira and Nitrobacter, resulting in the high dominance of Nitrobacter over Nitrospira. Meanwhile, through using the qPCR, it was observed that the nitrite-reducing functional genes (i.e., nirS) were dominant in the activated sludge of the anoxic reactor, regardless of CN(-) loads.

Experimental Investigation of a Spiral-Wound Pressure-Retarded Osmosis Membrane Module for Osmotic Power Generation

Pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) uses a semipermeable membrane to produce renewable energy from salinity-gradient energy. A spiral-wound (SW) design is one module configuration of the PRO membrane. The SW PRO membrane module has two different flow paths, axial and spiral, and two different spacers, net and tricot, for draw- and feed-solution streams, respectively. This study used an experimental approach to investigate the relationship between two interacting flow streams in a prototype SW PRO membrane module, and the adverse impact of a tricot fabric spacer (as a feed spacer) on the PRO performance, including water flux and power density. The presence of the tricot spacer inside the membrane envelope caused a pressure drop due to flow resistance and reduced osmotic water permeation due to the shadow effect. The dilution of the draw solution by water permeation resulted in the reduction of the osmotic pressure difference along a pressure vessel. For a 0.6 M NaCl solution and tap water, the water flux and corresponding maximum power density were 3.7 L m(-2)h(-1) and 1.0 W/m(2) respectively at a hydraulic pressure difference of 9.8 bar. The thickness and porosity of the tricot spacer should be optimized to achieve high SW PRO module performance.

Influence of operational parameters on nitrogen removal efficiency and microbial communities in a full-scale activated sludge process

To improve the efficiency of total nitrogen (TN) removal, solid retention time (SRT) and internal recycling ratio controls were selected as operating parameters in a full-scale activated sludge process treating high strength industrial wastewater. Increased biomass concentration via SRT control enhanced TN removal. Also, decreasing the internal recycling ratio restored the nitrification process, which had been inhibited by phenol shock loading. Therefore, physiological alteration of the bacterial populations by application of specific operational strategies may stabilize the activated sludge process. Additionally, two dominant ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) populations, Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrosomonas nitrosa, were observed in all samples with no change in the community composition of AOB. In a nitrification tank, it was observed that the Nitrobacter populations consistently exceeded those of the Nitrospira within the nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) community. Through using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR), nirS, the nitrite reducing functional gene, was observed to predominate in the activated sludge of an anoxic tank, whereas there was the least amount of the narG gene, the nitrate reducing functional gene.

Sudden failure of biological nitrogen and carbon removal in the full-scale pre-denitrification process treating cokes wastewater

A full-scale pre-denitrification process treating cokes wastewater containing toxic compounds such as phenols, cyanides and thiocyanate has shown good performance in carbon and nitrogen removal. However, field operators have been having trouble with its instability without being able to identify the causes. To clarify the main cause of these sudden failures of the process, comprehensive studies were conducted on the pre-denitrification process using a lab-scale reactor system with real cokes wastewater. First, the shock loading effects of three major pollutants were investigated individually. As the loading amount of phenol increased to 600 mg/L, more COD, TOC and phenol itself were flowed into the aerobic reactor, but phenol itself did not inhibit nitrification and denitrification, owing to the effect of dilution and its rapid biodegradation. Higher loading of ammonia or thiocyanate slightly enhanced the removal efficiency of organic matter, but caused the final discharge concentration of total nitrogen to be above its legal limit of 60 mg-N/L. Meanwhile, continuous inflow of abnormal wastewater collected during unstable operation of the full-scale pre-denitrification process, caused a sudden failure of nitrogen removal in the lab-scale process, like the removal pattern of the full-scale one. This was discovered to be due to the lack of inorganic carbon in the aerobic reactor where autotrophic nitrification occurs.

Investigation of bacterial community in activated sludge with an anaerobic side-stream reactor (ASSR) to decrease the generation of excess sludge

The goal of this study was to investigate the bacterial community in activated sludge with an anaerobic side-stream reactor (ASSR), a process permitting significant decrease in sludge production during wastewater treatment. The study operated five activated sludge systems with different sludge treatment schemes serving as various controls for the activated sludge with ASSR. Bacterial communities were analyzed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), sequencing and construction of phylogenetic relationships of the identified bacteria. The DGGE data showed that activated sludge incorporating ASSR contained higher diversity of bacteria, resulting from long solids retention time and recirculation of sludge under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The similarity of DGGE profiles between ASSR and separate anaerobic digester (control) was high indicating that ASSR is primarily related to conventional anaerobic digesters. Nevertheless, there was also unique bacteria community appearing in ASSR. Interestingly, sludge in the main system and in ASSR showed considerably different bacterial composition indicating that ASSR allowed enriching its own bacterial community different than that from the aeration basin, although two reactors were connected via sludge recirculation. In activated sludge with ASSR, sequences represented by predominant DGGE bands were affiliated with Proteobacteria. The remaining groups were composed of Spirochaetes, Clostridiales, Chloroflexi, and Actinobacteria. Their putative role in the activated sludge with ASSR is also discussed in this study.

Response of nitrifying bacterial communities to the increased thiocyanate concentration in pre-denitrification process

Changes in process performance and the nitrifying bacterial community associated with an increase of thiocyanate (SCN-) loading were investigated in a pre-denitrification process treating industrial wastewater. The increased SCN- loading led to the concentration of total nitrogen (TN) in the final effluent, but increasing the internal recycling ratio as an operation parameter from 2 to 5 resulted in a 21% increase in TN removal efficiency. In the aerobic reactor, we found that the Nitrosomonas europaea lineage was the predominant ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and the percentages of the AOB population within the total bacteria increased from about 4.0% to 17% with increased SCN- concentration. The increase of nitrite loading seemed to change the balance between Nitrospira and Nitrobacter, resulting in the high dominance of Nitrospira over Nitrobacter. Meanwhile, a Thiobacillus thioparus was suggested to be the main microorganism responsible for the SCN- biodegradation observed in the system.

Thermal Characterization of Polymer Composites by Using the 3-Omega Method

Polymer composites having comparable thermal conductivity to stainless steel at room temperature are commercially available nowadays. Metal or carbon fiber and particles are added to base polymers to enhance mechanical and thermal performance. However for polymer composites having high additive concentration, characterizing mechanical and thermal properties of the composite may be a challenging problem due to an-isotropic natural and non-homogeneity. In this paper, a novel thermal property measurement method based on the 3-omega (3ω) is proposed for thermal analysis of polymer composites. Sensitivity and feasible limit of the 3ω method with “boundary mismatch assumption” is analyzed for measurement of polymer composites having broad range of thermal conductivity.Copyright