Domestic Wastewater Treatment: A Comparison between an Integrated Hybrid UASB-IFAS System and a Conventional UASB-AS System

Ayman M. Dohdoh, Ibrahim Hendy, Martina Zelenakova and Ahmed Abdo
Additional contact information
Ayman M. Dohdoh: Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Ibrahim Hendy: Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Martina Zelenakova: Institute of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical, University of Kosice, Vysokoskolska 4, 04001 Kosice, Slovakia
Ahmed Abdo: Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: The current study presents a detailed evaluation and comparison between two integrated anaerobic–aerobic systems for biological wastewater treatment under equal conditions in all aspects (wastewater characteristics, climatic conditions, reactor sizing, and even the measurement methods). The two examined systems are (i) a hybrid upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (hybrid UASB) coupled with integrated fixed-film activated sludge (IFAS) and (ii) a conventional UASB coupled with activated sludge (AS). The present comparative study aims to evaluate and assess the effect of adding carrier-filling media on the performance of the classical integrated UASB-AS. The two parallel pilot-scale systems, hybrid UASB-IFAS and UASB-AS, were installed and operated at a wastewater treatment plant. Three sets of experiments were conducted to examine the influence of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) on the consequent organic and hydraulic loads, temperature, and recirculation rate of the proposed systems. The main results showed that the two investigated systems had a comparably high efficiency for the removal of organic matters and ammonia. Moreover, a paired sample t -test indicated there was a statistically significant effect of the filling media, and the performance of the hybrid UASB-IFAS increased significantly compared with that of the UASB-AS system. An additional benefit of the filling media on the hybrid system was its high stability when changing the organic and hydraulic loads. The optimum HRT was 6 h, with a total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) percentage removal of approximately 95% in both examined systems. Treatment of sewage under high and low temperatures indicated that increasing the temperature improved the efficiency of the overall process for both systems significantly.

Keywords: upflow anaerobic sludge blanket; hybrid UASB; activated sludge; IFAS; integrated anaerobic–aerobic; domestic wastewater (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1853/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1853/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:1853-:d:495910

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().