Start-up of full-scale UASB - verftical flow constructed wetland for domestic wastewater treatment

Paper ID: 
cest2021_00829
Topic: 
Wastewater treatment
Published under CEST2021
Proceedings ISBN: 978-618-86292-1-9
Proceedings ISSN: 2944-9820
Authors: 
(Corresponding) Malamis S., Statiris E., Seintos T., Koukoura A., Mamais D., Noutsopoulos C., Masi F., Rizzo A., Bresciani R.
Abstract: 
This work examined the start-up of a full-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) - vertical flow constructed wetland (CW) for domestic wastewater treatment. The UASB reactors were inoculated with sludge originating from an industrial anaerobic reactor and the start-up period due to the slow growth rate of anaerobic sludge and the low temperatures (<18oC) during this period, expanded the start-up phase to 3 months. After the start-up period, two different operational configurations were studied on the vertical flow constructed wetlands with the application, or not, of internal recirculation between the saturated and unsaturated CW beds. During the 1st period of relatively stable operation, the UASB-CW system (with CWs recirculation mode) treated 32.3±2.5 m3d-1 of domestic wastewater achieving up to 92±5% of COD removal. During the 2nd period of operation, the system operated without recirculation between the 2 different types of vertical flow wetlands and under an influent flow of 65±4.0 m3d-1 of domestic wastewater and achieved up to 96±1% of COD removal.
Keywords: 
UASB, constructed wetlands, domestic wastewater treatment