Degradation Of Phenol And M-Cresol With UASB Reactor At Ambient Temperature

Along with the rapid development of industrial, wastewater increases not only in quantity but also in kinds, which make the water conditions polluted badly. The treatment of phenolic wastewater has become one of the issues that must be resolved. Phenolic compounds are various in style, such as phenol, cresol, phenyle phenol, naphthol, chlorine phenol, etc. The most prominent phenolic compounds in pollution are phenol and cresol.Phenol and m-cresol both are hazardous materials. Even at low concentration, they do harm to biomass for its toxic properties. Wastewaters from industries often contain more than one type of phenolic pollutant. Those with more complex structures are often more toxic than the simple phenol. Biological methods of phenolics removal are preferable in wastewater treatment process as a relatively low processing costs and low possibility of a secondary pollution, because lots of microorganisms can utilize phenolics as carbon resource and energy.In this investigation, UASB reactors are utilized to study the feasibility of treating phenol,m-cresol and the synthetic wastewater containing phenol as sole organic substrate at ambient temperature. The thesis studies on degradation characteristics of phenol and m-cresol at ambient temperature in the UASB reactors, major on the factors that impact the operation of UASB, including COD load,HRT,the concentration of phenolic compounds,influence of co-substrate and the temperature. Compared with the operation conditions and removal effect at mesophilic temperature in UASB reactors tested previously, the removal efficiency of phenolic compounds can be increased by improving the technology.The results show that Aerobic sludge can be used as the inoculation sludge for UASB reactor, the powdered activated carbon is superior to ceramsite in the process of promoting the sludge granulation. The toxicity of phenol which inhibits anaerobic sludge can be reduced when glucose is input as co-substrate, thus speeding up the sludge acclimation and degradation of phenol. The degradation of m-cresol in UASB reactor at ambient temperature has shown successful result in the absence of glucose, the removal efficiency of m-cresol reached 96.2% when the HRT is 18h and the concentration of m-cresol reaches 900mg/L, corresponding to the volumetric loading 3.38gCOD/(L·d). The method by making R₁ and R₂ in series reactor operation is effective. When the concentration of influent phenol and m-cresol is 882mg/L and 300 mg/L respectively, HRT for 18h, the organic volumetric loading for 4.28kgCOD/ (m³Â·d), the series reactor operation the best according to gas production, phenol removal efficiency and the reactor operating conditions, more than 95% COD is removed, the removal rate of phenol reaches 95% and a mean biogas production of 3.6L/d is achieved.