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Submerged attached-growth reactors as lagoon retrofits for cold-weather ammonia removal: performance and sizing
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Submerged attached-growth reactors as lagoon retrofits for cold-weather ammonia removal: performance and sizing

Rebecca R Mattson, Matt Wildman and Craig Just
Water science and technology, Vol.78(8), pp.1625-1632
11/2018
DOI: 10.2166/wst.2018.399
PMID: 30500786
url
https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2018.399View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Small towns that operate wastewater treatment lagoons struggle to meet ammonia limits in cold weather. Here we report the performance of a lagoon, retrofitted with submerged attached growth reactors (SAGRs ), to provide insight on ammonia effluent compliance and optimal SAGR sizing as functions of water temperature. The lagoon-SAGR water resource recovery facility (WRRF) removed 95% of incoming ammonia with 94% attributed to the SAGRs. The high treatment capacity of the two primary SAGRs, evidenced by nearly continuous dissolved oxygen saturation and exceedingly high ammonia removals, suggested the two secondary SAGRs were essentially unnecessary and that all four SAGRs should be reduced in size. Furthermore, without the secondary SAGRs, the primary SAGR effluent would have exceeded the permitted ammonia discharge limit only four times in the 2.5-year study. At its current size, the lagoon-SAGR WRRF never exceeded permitted ammonia limits, but size reductions should be used for future retrofits.
Bioreactors Waste Water Ammonia - analysis Cold Temperature Temperature Waste Disposal, Fluid - methods Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis

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