Cellulose Carrier in Aeration Tanks

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Hi. I need some information about IFAS technology for wastewater treatment (integrated fixed film activated sludge). 

The media I want to use in aeration tank is cellulose crusts such as almond shells and pistachio shells.

Is there any study about this media? Or is any material contains cellulose used as the carrier in aeration tanks instead of these shells?

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8 Answers

  1. The idea is a good one and worth exploring. The almond shells in particular have pores where the microbes can attach. It will be necessary to provide enough aeration to keep the shells in suspension. The pistachio shells are likely to degrade over time since they are much thinner than the almond shells. It is also worth remembering that it is the biofilm attached to the shells which do all the degradation work so I would certainly consider bioaugmentation to make sure you have optimised biofilm for the influent to be treated.

  2. I quite like the idea. I would rather have something slowly disintegrated by bacteria than something that never breaks down, continuously creating microplastic contamination. I would consider that the pistachio shells are floating, the almond shells are sinking. They have considerable surface, but let's not forget that only the inside counts: they will continuously rub the outside clean. 

    I've never heard of using any of these materials (maybe as they are byproducts, and no profit in using them). 

  3. Typically the media utilised in MBBR systems that I have encountered have a fixed density that allows the media to float and be mobile relative to a balanced amount of energy that is transferred into the process, I am not certain if these shells will change in character and subsequent density the longer they are submerged in the wastewater, changing the dynamics of the process? The plastic media utilised is readily available these days, globally.

    Hope this helps

  5. When we have added media to bioreactor/aeration systems, we have had to secure the media in a poly mesh bag, otherwise the rubbing against one another would scour off the fixed growth film and it would pass through the system reducing the volume of CFUs available for biological reductions. Once the media was secured the performance went up in direct proportion to the increase in CFUs available on the surface area. There is natural sloughing and those cultures become part of the floc.

  6. Dear Sir.

    Regarding for MBBR system which using plastic ball media and fixed film which using fishering net, both of them make AS increase in trem of performance. For you proposal in term of organics waste I had been tried by using the big rope make from fiber tree during my M.Sc. and the result is not so good because all Bacteria will attach with plastic very less. My work success quite much  in term of fixed film or packbed AD with low COD around 2000-5000 mg/l. The point is cellwall of bacteria contains negative and positive ion. So from my opinion I would like to suggest to try on organic media with having boths positive and nagative with high value of m2/m3 including the optimum weight when the system are working look seem like blanklet of UASB.

    AGGIE

    Thailand

    aggasit2012@gmail.com

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