Effect of COD/N ratio and salinity on the performance of sequencing batch reactors

The effects of COD/N ratio (3-6) and salt concentration (0.5-2%) on organics and nitrogen removal efficiencies in three bench top sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) with synthetic wastewater and one SBR with fish market wastewater were investigated under different operating schedules. The solids retention time (SRT, 20-100 days) and aeration time (4-10 h) was also varied to monitor the performance. For synthetic wastewater, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were consistently greater than 95%, irrespective of changes in COD/N ratio, aeration time and salt concentrations. Increasing the salt concentrations decreased the nitrification efficiency, while high COD/N ratio's favored better nitrogen removal (> 90%). The treatment of real saline wastewater (similar to 3.2%) from a fish market showed high COD (> 80%) and nitrogen (> 40%) removal efficiencies despite high loading rate and COD/N fluctuations, which is due to the acclimatization of the biomass within the SBR. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.