Determination of operational parameters of anaerobic phase for enhanced phosphorus removal in MBR

Two runs of experiments were carried out to obtain an understanding of phosphorus release and uptake under the anaerobic condition and then the aerobic condition respectively. Under anaerobic condition, it was found that the extent of phosphorus release appeared to increase with the increase of the initial organic loading rate when the initial organic loading rate was up to 0.1 gSCOD/gMLSS. When the initial organic loading rate was higher than 0.1 gSCOD/gMLSS, the amount of phosphorus release per unit mass of MLSS reached nearly a same stationary value, and it seemed this is not affected by organic loading rate when there is external available substrate remained. In addition, the effect of NOx-N on the phosphorus release and uptake was also investigated, it was proved that the denitrifiers has an advantage over polyphosphate accumulating bacteria in competition for organic substrate under anoxic condition. Therefore, the existence of NOx-N is disadvantageous to the phosphorus release. Based upon the above investigations, the process configuration of membrane bioreactor(MBR) in combination with anaerobic phase was proposed to enhance the removal of phosphorus in treating domestic wastewater. During the experimental period of four months, average removals of 92.50%, 84.25%, 100%, 94.09% and 85.33% were achieved for COD, TP, SS, NH_3-N and TN respectively.