A membrane-coupled aerobic bioreactor (MBR) can be described as a system coupling the aerobic bioreactor, or activated sludge tank, of a wastewater treatment system with a microor ultrafiltration membrane. The membrane serves to separate the suspended material in the sludge so that the permeate stream is free of chemicals, microorganisms, and other contaminants. The membrane may be either inter...

There are several long term water quality issues associated with discharging nutrients, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus into receiving water streams that are very difficult to manage. Due to these concerns many environmental regulatory agencies have either established nutrient discharge criteria or in the process of developing nutrient management plans. If a wastewater treatment plant is r...

Digestion of municipal wastewater biosolids is a necessary prerequisite to their beneficial use in land application, in order to protect public health and the receiving environment. In this study, 13 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), 11 musks, and 17 polybrominated diphenyl ethers were analyzed in 84 samples including primary sludge, waste activated sludge, digested biosolids,...

There are two biological systems available for removing phosphorus from waste water, conventional phosphorus removal (CPR) and denitrifying phosphorus removal (DPR) systems, and each is characterized by the type of sludge used in the process. In this study, we compared the characteristics associated with the efficiency of carbon utilization between CPR and DPR sludge using acetate as a carbon s...

Discharge of high NH4-N containing wastewater into water bodies has become a critical and serious issue due to its negative impact on water and environmental quality. In this research, the performance of three different reactors was assessed and compared with regard to the removal of NH4-N from wastewater. The highest nitrogen removal efficiency of 98.3% was found when the entrapped sludge reac...

Four selected azo dyes (acid orange 6, acid orange 7, methyl orange and methyl red) were completely decolourised in the presence of anaerobic granular sludge, while only methyl red was degraded in aerobic conditions using a conventional activated sludge. Additional experiments with culture broth devoid of cells showed that anaerobic decolourisation of azo dyes was performed by extracellular red...

The pathophysiology of canine gallbladder diseases, including biliary sludge, gallbladder mucoceles and gallstones, is poorly understood. This study aimed to evaluate the component of gallbladder contents and bacterial infection of the gallbladder in order to elucidate the pathophysiology of biliary sludge and gallbladder mucoceles. A total of 43 samples of canine gallbladder contents (biliary ...

Anaerobic treatment is applied extensively of removal of organic pollutants (COD) from wastewater. It is more competitive than aerobic treatment in applications where the quantity of COD to be removed is large. The major fraction of COD is converted to useful methane gas, and only a small fraction becomes waste sludge. The COD loading rate of anaerobic reactors is higher than that of aerobic re...

Aerobic granular sludge is attractive for high-rate biological wastewater treatment. Biomass wash-out conditions stimulate the formation of aerobic granules. Deteriorated performances in biomass settling and nutrient removal during start-up have however often been reported. The effect of wash-out dynamics was investigated on bacterial selection, biomass settling behavior, and metabolic activiti...

In this study, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)--a biodegradable plastics material--was produced by activated sludge performing enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) in batch experiments under anaerobic, aerobic and anaerobic/aerobic conditions. Under anaerobic conditions, the maximum PHB content of the dry biomass was 28.8% by weight, while under aerobic or anaerobic/aerobic conditions, the m...