Performance and stability of a dynamically controlled EBPR anaerobic/aerobic granular sludge reactor

Treatment of rapidly varying wastewaters in anaerobic/aerobic aerobic granular sludge (AGS) systems remains problematic. This study investigated AGS formation and the impact of varying COD and phosphorus concentrations on an enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) AGS SBR with a conductivity based anaerobic and OUR based aerobic dynamically controlled step. Phase 1 investigated the development of AGS. Phase 2 examined the flexibility of the dynamic control strategy and AGS efficiency while rapidly altering the influent composition. AGS was formed successfully in phase 1: the DV50 increased to 285 mu m, and the SVI5 and SVI30 decreased to 51 and 40 ml/g respectively. In phase 2 the effluent COD and PO4-P concentration remained low at respectively 58 +/- 27 mg/L and 0.53 +/- 0.77 mg/L. With an anaerobic DOC uptake efficiency of 98.4 +/- 0.9%.