LEF-BIOWASTE · Low Environmental Footprint Biological Treatment Processes for Waste and Wastewater Treatment

Low Environmental Footprint Biological Treatment Processes for Waste and Wastewater Treatment

The project “LEF-BIOWASTE” is a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (CIG) that supported the fellow Dr Simos Malamis to carry out research at the Department of Biotechnology of the University of Verona. The grant strengthened the research profile of Dr Malamis allowing him to pursue an academic career in the field of environmental technology. The overall objective of LEF-BIOWASTE is to develop, apply, optimize and evaluate innovative, low environmental footprint biological processes for the treatment of a variety of wastewater. The bioprocesses that are examined include anaerobic treatment, nitritation/denitritation, biological phosphorus removal via nitrite, partial nitritation coupled with anoxic ammonium oxidation (anammox). The integrated system of the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) coupled to the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was developed and applied. In this system the aforementioned bioprocesses were investigated. LEF-BIOWASTE has a number of objectives which includes the optimization of the integrated UASB-SBR for the treatment of different feed streams, the examination of the impact of the operating conditions, the investigation of the fate and removal of selected contaminants by the UASB-SBR process, the examination of the post treatment of different anaerobic effluents, the evaluation of the integrated UASB-SBR process and dissemination of the project’s objectives, activities and findings. The following activities were implemented: • The bench scale UASB-SBR was designed, constructed and tested • The operation of the UASB-SBR process was evaluated for different feed wastewater which consisted of domestic wastewater, winery wastewater and domestic wastewater coupled with fermentation liquid derived from biowaste. The UASB resulted in effective removal of organics and biogas production, while the SBR resulted in effective post treatment of the UASB effluent, removing nutrients via nitrite. • The impact of different operating conditions on the UASB process was evaluated. The optimal hydraulic retention time, organic loading rate and upflow velocity for UASB operation was found for each type of feed stream. • The bioprocesses of nitritation/denitritation and biological phosphorus removal via nitrite were successfully applied to treat sludge reject water and low strength UASB effluent • The nitritation–anammox process was successfully applied to treat low strength UASB effluent and anaerobically treated swine effluent. The fate and removal of selected contaminants was determined. Furthermore, the inhibition caused by selected contaminants to the examined bioprocesses was investigated. LEF-BIOWASTE has provided new insight on the short-cut nutrient removal bioprocesses to treat a variety of wastewater streams. Furthermore, it has demonstrated the flexibility of the integrated UASB-SBR process to handle different feed streams. The impact of the project is significant: these bioprocesses can be applied in small and decentralized communities, in municipal plants to treat the reject water, in agro-industrial areas to treat winery and livestock effluents. The project enhances the penetration of these technologies at wider scale increasing job opportunities and decreasing societal problems related to poor management of such wastewater streams. In terms of dissemination, the project’s logo and website were developed (www.lef-biowaste.org). LEF-BIOWASTE resulted in the publication of six scientific papers in peer reviewed journals and seven presentations at International Conferences. A workshop was organized in the framework of LEF-BIOWASTE on advanced biological nutrient removal processes in which the project findings were disseminated.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union