Partition of Volatile Organic Compounds in Activated Sludge and Wastewater

Abstract

The Henry’s law constant is important in the gas-liquid mass transfer process. Apparent dimensionless Henry’s law constant, or the gas-liquid partition coefficient (K’ _H), for both hydrophilic (methanol, isopropyl alcohol, and acetone) and hydrophobic (toluene and p-xylene) organic compounds in deionized (DI) water, a wastewater with a maximum total dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content of 700 mg/L, and DI water mixed with a maximum activated sludge suspended solid (SS) concentration of 40,000 mg/L were measured using the single equilibrium technique at 293 K.

Experimental results demonstrate that the K’ _H of any of the test volatile organic compounds varied among three situations. First, the K’_H of the hydrophilic compounds in mixed liquor with the maximum SS concentration was 9–21% higher than those in DI water. Second, those for toluene and p-xylene were 77% and 93% lower, respectively, in the mixed liquor with the maximum SS concentration. Third, the K’_H values of all of the test compounds in the wastewater were only 10% lower than those in DI water.

A model was developed to relate K’ _H with wastewater DOC and the SS concentration in the activated sludge using an organic carbon-water partition coefficient and activated sludge-water partition coefficient as model parameters. The model was verified and model parameters for test compounds estimated.