Utilização da técnica respirométrica para a avaliação do desempenho de sistemas de lodos ativados aplicados ao tratamento de efluentes

Abstract

The main purpose of this work was to evaluate the use of the respirometric technique as a tool to monitor the activated sludge processes when adverse conditions to the treatment process are imposed to the system. The following effects were studied: change in hydraulic detention time (HDT) of the experimental wastewater treatment process, absence of dissolved oxygen in aerobic reactor, impact of high concentrations of nitrogen, sulfide and phenol in activated sludge. When the HDT of the experimental wastewater treatment process decreases, it can result in an overload of food applied on the system and promote a reduction in the efficiency. This effect could be observed in the respirometry tests, which presented reductions of up to 51% in the specific oxygen uptake rate (SOUR). It was noticed that it is possible to perform scheduled or not interruptions in the supply of dissolved oxygen to the system. When the activated sludge is subjected to concentrations higher than 100 mg L-1 of ammonia nitrogen, a rapid adaptation of micro-organisms was observed, without significant loss of efficiency in the biological wastewater treatment. The influence of metals that catalyze the reaction of oxidation of sulfide in medium containing this ion was also evaluated. The metal which showed the higher catalytic effect, with consequent increase in SOUR, was manganese, with 62%, and the one that presented the lowest catalytic effect was nickel, with only 9.5% increase in the consumption of dissolved oxygen. However, it was identified that nickel presented the highest percentage of inhibition, around 79%. For one of the aerobic biomass used in the tests, it was determined the concentration of phenol of 187 mg L-1 as the one which inhibits 50% of metabolic activity. The results of this study clearly demonstrated that the respirometric technique is effective to monitor and detect adverse effects on the biological wastewater treatment processes.