DEGRADATION OF PHENOL USING SEQUENTIAL BATCH REACTOR

Rajkumar V. Raikar, Rekha Patil, Arjun Virupakshi

Abstract: The paper presents the experimental study on the use of Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR) for the degradation of phenol in the synthetic wastewater. SBR was used as a biological treatment for the reduction of COD, which is based on suspended growth system. The garden soil with cow dung was used as the seeding material in SBR, the micro-organisms that are present help in degradation of phenol as well as reducing the COD concentration. The parameters varied in the study were initial concentration of phenol in the synthetic wastewater, aeration rate and hydraulic retention time. The degradation study shows that the maximum phenol removal efficiency is 97% for 200 ppm of initial phenol concentration under 40 ml/min of aeration rate. The COD removal efficiency of 92.3% is achieved for 250 ppm of concentration of phenol. The variation in the aeration rate was found to be very effective in increasing the efficiency of SBR. For 600 ml/min of aeration, the removal efficiency of phenol and COD are respectively, 98% and 75%. But for the aeration rate of 200 ml/min the removal efficiency of COD is as high as 81.25%. Hence, with the increase in the aeration rate, there is an increase in the degradation rate of phenol and decrease in COD reduction. This study demonstrates the utilization of SBR in degrading high concentration of phenol.

Keywords: Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR), Phenol, COD, Biological Treatment …

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0404093