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Treatment of wastewater from syngas wet scrubbing: Model‐based comparison of phenol biodegradation basin configurations
Author(s) -
Akhlas Junaid,
Bertucco Alberto,
Ruggeri Fabio,
Collodi Guido
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.22848
Subject(s) - biodegradation , phenol , wastewater , hydraulic retention time , data scrubbing , chemistry , pulp and paper industry , sewage treatment , microorganism , waste management , environmental science , environmental engineering , organic chemistry , geology , bacteria , engineering , paleontology
Abstract A treatment process for the biological removal of phenol from wastewater generated from the wet scrubbing of syngas is discussed with the objective of reducing Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) for the process. In phenol biodegradation, a major challenge is posed by the inhibitory effect of high inlet phenol concentrations on the functioning of degrading microorganisms, leading to excessively high HRT values. This study provides a theoretical insight on the effect of reactor configuration and operation mode on the residence time for high strength phenolic wastewaters. Two pre‐treated wastewater streams mainly contaminated with phenol, with different flow rates and phenol concentrations, have been considered for evaluation in this work. Various configurations to remove phenol have been studied and compared. The kinetics in the reactors have been estimated using the Haldane‐Andrews equation for a variety of microorganisms. The configurations which require minimum residence time for a given extent of phenol biodegradation are those employing two reactors in series with a certain reflux stream. Gulosibacter sp. YZ4 is found to be the most effective microorganism in removing phenol within the minimum retention period.