Sustainable wastewater systems: Impact of operational strategies and carbon sources on poly-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) accumulation and nutrient removal in sequencing batch reactor
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Abstract
In a sustainable wastewater treatment system, wastewater is viewed as a resource rather than a waste. Carbon recovery as poly-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) has attracted attention in the last two decades. In this study, the possibility of combining PHB accumulation in the biomass along with wastewater treatment was investigated. Three operational conditions and addition of acetate and fermented corn stillage as carbon sources in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) were evaluated. The react phase of a 6 hour cycle of a SBR was divided into anaerobic and aerobic sequences to investigate the best operational condition to maximize PHB production and wastewater treatment. Condition B, where the react cycle was divided into two rounds of 45 minutes of anaerobic sequence and 2 hours of aerobic sequence each with the addition of acetate in the anaerobic sequence, gave a PHB content of 37.4±4.1% (wt./wt.) in the biomass. The acetate added was 1200 mg-C/cycle. Using fermented Mg(OH)2-precipitated corn stillage, the PHB content in the biomass achieved was 24.3% (wt./wt.) and a TP content of 8.6% (wt./wt.) for the addition of 800 mg-C/cycle fermented Mg(OH)2-precipitated corn stillage. The results of this study showed that it is possible to recover both PHB and phosphorus by using fermented corn stillage as a carbon source and at the same time treat municipal wastewater.