Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2017ND331B

Nutrient Removal from Domestic and Livestock Wastewaters Using Integrating Electro-Coagulation and Biological Processes

Institute: North Dakota
Year Established: 2017 Start Date: 2017-03-01 End Date: 2018-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $5,510 Total Non-Federal Funds: $11,020

Principal Investigators: Halis Simsek

Project Summary: An integrated model using electrocoagulation (EC) and biological treatment of livestock and domestic wastewater to reduce chemical oxygen demand and nutrients has been proposed. The livestock wastewaters contain high concentration of organic compounds with high turbidity and color. Hence, direct application of biological treatment methods to raw livestock wastewater is challenging. EC has been efficient as a pretreatment method in the removal of color as well as reduction of organic carbon concentration in various wastewaters including livestock and domestic wastewaters. Degradation of nitrogen compounds through biological treatment has been widely accepted in domestic wastewater. Thus, it is anticipated that integrating these two methods for treatment of wastewater derived-nutrients could be successful in improving the quality of surface waters. A study will be conducted in both livestock and domestic wastewaters. A preliminary study on domestic wastewater applying continuous operation at various hydraulic retention times (HRTs) (1.0, 3.0, and 6.0 days) using moving bed biofilm reactor media for the growth of algae and bacteria is presented in this proposal. Successful removal of dissolved organic nitrogen and soluble chemical oxygen demand has been achieved.