• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.395-409
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• 2017

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is a compact and efficient wastewater treatment and reclamation technology; but, it is limited by membrane fouling. The control of membrane fouling significantly increases operational and maintenance costs. Bacteria and their byproducts - extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) - are major contributors to membrane fouling in MBRs. A recent attempt at fouling mitigation is the development of aerobic granular sludge membrane bioreactor (AGMBR) through the integration of a novel biotechnology - aerobic granulation - and MBR. This paper provides an overview on the development of AGMBR to mitigate membrane fouling caused by bacteria and EPS. In AGMBR, EPS are used up in granule formation; and, the rigid structure of granules provides a surface for bacteria to attach to rather than the membrane surface. Preliminary research on AGMBR using synthetic wastewater show remarkable membrane fouling reduction compared to conventional MBR, thus improved membrane filtration. Enhanced performance in AGMBR using actual municipal wastewater at pilot-scale has also been reported. Therefore, further research is needed to determine AGMBR optimal operational conditions to enhance granule stability in long-term operations and in full-scale applications.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.151-160
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• 2006

Anaerobic treatment of landfill leachate was studied to investigate the behaviors of pollutant and the characteristics of microorganism for 10 months. The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor achieved about 90% chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal at organic loading rates(OLR) up to $20kgCOD/m^3.d$. At higher OLR ($8-20kgCOD/m^3.d$), the propionate concentration increased, indicating that converting propionate to acetate was the rate-limiting step. Nevertheless, increase in the precipitate inside and on the surface of granules as well as on the wall of the reactor resulted in operational problems. The main inorganic precipitate in the granule was calcium compound. Although specific methanogenic activity (SMA) was not affected seriously in this study, metals had to be removed prior to anaerobic treatment so as to be free from the excessive inorganic accumulation that resulted in operational problems.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 1991

In this paper, the microscopic results of granular sludge from the two-phase UASB reactors are presented, particularly on the acidogenic phase where the distillery waste water is directly delivered. Distillery wastewater as a feed contained SS of 3.6~10.6 g/l and COD of 17.3~30.4 g/l. A 12.5 l and a 4.7 l UASB reactors were used for acidogenic and methanogenic phases, repectively. Morphological studies on the granular sludge consortia were made with both scanning and transmission electron microscopies. It was interesting enough to find the different colored and shaped granules at the acidogenic on the 90th day and at the methanogenic phase on the 120th day. The acidogenic granular sludge mainly consisted of acidogenic bacteria, such as long chains of large rods, short plump rods, and various size of cocci. Whereas the filamentous bacteria of Methanothrix spp. prevail in the methanogenic granule, with dirverse bacteria entrapped therein.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.633-644
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• 2019

An advanced anaerobic expanded granular sludge bed (AnaEG) and an internal circulation (IC) reactor, which were adopted to treat starch processing wastewater (SPW) and ethanol processing wastewater (EPW), were comprehensively analyzed to determine the key factors that affected the granules and microbial communities in the bioreactors. The granule size of $900{\mu}m$ in the AnaEG reactor was smaller than that in the IC reactor, and the internal and external morphological structures of the granular sludge were also significantly different between the two types of reactors. The biodiversity, which was higher in the AnaEG reactor, was mainly affected by reactor type. However, the specific microbial community structure was determined by the type of wastewater. Furthermore, the dominant methanogens of EPW were mainly Methanosaeta and Methanobacterium, but only Methanosaeta was a major constituent in SPW. Compared with the IC reactor, characteristics common to the AnaEG reactor were smaller granules, higher biodiversity and larger proportion of unknown species. The comparison of characteristics between these two reactors not only aids in understanding the novel AnaEG reactor type, but also elucidates the effects of reactor type and wastewater type on the microbial community and sludge structure. This information would be helpful in the application of the novel AnaEG reactor.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.477-483
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• 2005

Anammox (Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation) bacteria is recently discovered microorganism which can oxidize ammonium to nitrogen gas in the presence of nitrite under anaerobic conditions. The anammox process can save an energy for nitrification and need not require a carbon source for denitrification, however, the start-up periods takes a long time more than several months due to the long doubling time (approximately 11 days). In order to find the effects of seeding microorganisms, hydrazine, and nitrite concentration on the enhancement of the anammox activity, five kinds of microorganisms were selected. Among the several kinds of seeding microorganisms, the granule from acclimated microorganisms treating high concentration of ammonia nitrogen (A-1) and sludge from piggery wastewater treatment plant (A-2) were found to have a high anammox activity. In the case of A-1, the maximum nitrogen conversion rate represented 0.4 mg N/L-hr, and the amount of nitrite utilization was high compared to those of other seeding microorganisms. The A-4 represented a higher nitrogen conversion rate to 0.7 mg N/L-hr although the ammonium concentration in the serum bottle was high as 200 mg/L. Meanwhile, the anaerobic granule from UASB reactor treating distillery wastewater showed a low anammox activity due to the denitrification by the remained carbon sources in the granule. Hydrazine, intermediate product in anammox reaction, enhanced the anammox activity by representing 1.4 times of nitrogen gas was produced in the test bottle than that of control, when 0.4 mM of $N_2H_4$ was added to serum bottle which contains 5 mM of nitrite. The high concentration of nitrite (10 mM) resulted in the decrease of the anammox activity by showing lower production of nitrogen gas compared to that of 5 mM addition of nitrite concentration. As a result of FISH (Florescence In-Situ Hybridization) experiment, the Amx820 probe showed a more than 13% of anammox bacteria in a granule (A-1).

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.78-85
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• 2000

Leachate from acidogenic fermentation of food waste was effectively treated by the UASB reactor at $37^{\circ}C$. The efficiency of COD removal was consistently over 96% up to the loading rates of $15.8g\;COD/{\ell}{\cdot}d$. The methane production rate increased to $5.5{\ell}/{\ell}{\cdot}d$. Of all the COD removed, 92% was converted to methane and the rest presumably to biomass. At loading rates over $18.7g\;COD/{\ell}{\cdot}d$, the efficiency of COD removal decreased due to the sludge flotation and washout in the reactor, which resulted from short HRT of less than 10.6 hr. The SMA(specific methanogenic activity) analysis showed that the VFA-degrading activity of granule was the highest for butyrate, and the lowest for propionate. This result was consistent with the observation that the residual propionate concentration was the highest among the VFAs in the effluent. Typical granules were found to be mainly composed of microcolonies of Methanosaeta. Though the original seed sludge contained 64.3% of particles smaller than 1.4mm, the sludge particles had been growing during the fermentation, and at the final step of this study, 75.1% of the particles were found to be larger than 1.4 mm in the UASB reactor.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2014

In this study, aerobic granules were applied to a lab-scale aerobic granule sludge airlift reactor (AGSAR) and the ammonium nitrogen oxidation performance was evaluated at different ammonium nitrogen loading rate (NLR). At least 99% of the initial ammonium nitrogen was oxidized at an NLR of 0.27 and 0.53 kg $NH_4{^+}-N/m^3{\cdot}day$, for both aerobic granules (control), and nitrifying aerobic granules (NAGs). The ammonium nitrogen oxidation deteriorated, when the NLR was increased to 1.07 kg $NH_4{^+}-N/m^3{\cdot}day$. The NAGs were characterized by complete nitrification, while partial nitrification was observed in the control.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.852-859
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• 2006

The novel microbial process such as Anammox(anaerobic ammonium oxidation) and Canon(completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite) processes is promising biotechnology to remove nitrogen from ammonium-rich wastewater like anaerobic sludge digester liquid. In this research, a new Canon-type nitrogen removal process adopting upflow granular sludge bed type configuration was investigated on its feasibility and process performance, using synthetic wastewater and sludge digester liquids. Air as an oxygen source was provided in an external aeration chamber with flow recirculation. In the first experiment using the synthetic wastewater(up to 110 mg $NH_4$-N $L^{-1}$), the ammonium removal was about 95%(92% for T-N) at effective hydraulic retention time(HRT) for 3.8 days. In the second experiment using the sludge digester liquids($438{\pm}26$ mg $NH_4$-N $L^{-1}$), the total nitrogen removal was $94{\pm}1.7%$ at HRT for 5.4 days and $76{\pm}1.5%$ at HRT for 3.8 days, respectively. Little nitrite and nitrate were observed in the effluent of both experiments. The process revealed quite a lower oxygen($0.29{\sim}0.59$ g $O_2$ $g^{-1}N$) and less alkalinity($3.1{\sim}3.4$ g $CaCO_3$ $g^{-1}N$) consumption as compared to other new technology in microbial nitrogen removal. The process also offers the economical compact reactor configuration with excellent biomass retention, resulting in lower cost for investment and maintenance.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.534-538
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• 2004

Granulation characteristics have been studied with an aerobic sequencing batch reactor(SBR). Organic loading of 2.46kg COD/$m^3$/day followed by 4.14kg COD/$m^3$/day had been applied to the lab-scale SBR with a very short settling time during the operating cycle. The granulation proceeded to the diameter range of 3 to 5 mm with MLSS concentration of 12,000mg/L at 45th days of operation while COD removal efficiency remained almost consistent after the granule formation. It has been noticed that aerobic granulation under the higher loading with a very short settling time seemed to be due to the microbial selection of better flocculating species.

• Food Engineering Progress
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.280-285
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to increase the efficiency of starch extraction from potato sludge by different concentration of food-grade hemicellulase. The potato sludge, which is a by-product of potato processing industry, was treated with food-grade hemicellulase. Starch extraction efficiency displayed no significant difference in hemicellulase concentration. The purities of potato starch increased from 83.40 to 95.91, 97.44, 95.58, and 97.79%, with treated 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, and 1.5% hemicellulase, respectively. The physicochemical properties of the starches, such as granule structure, particle size, pasting, and thermal transition, were not affected by the concentration of hemicellulase. These results indicate that food-grade hemicellulase treatment is an efficient method for starch extraction from potato sludge.