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ANALYSIS OF AN AEROBIC FLUIDIZED BED REACTOR DEGRADING MTBE AND BTEX AT REDUCED EBCTS
Citation:
Sedran, M. A., M. T. Suidan, A D. Venosa*, AND A. Pruden. ANALYSIS OF AN AEROBIC FLUIDIZED BED REACTOR DEGRADING MTBE AND BTEX AT REDUCED EBCTS . In Proceedings, American Water Works Association 2003 Annual Conference and Exposition, Anaheim, CA, June 22 - 26, 2003. American Water Works Association, Denver, CO, -, (2003).
Description:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the biodegradation of MTBE and BTEX using a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) with granular activated carbon (GAC) as a biological attachment medium. Batch experiments were run to analyze the MTBE and TBA degradation kinetics of the culture attached to the carbon. Initially, the FBR was operated with MTBE as the only contaminant at an influent concentration of 8 mg/L with an empty bed contact time (EBCT) of one hour. After a 30-day start-up period, the effluent concentration of MTBE stabilized at 19.1 µg/L and the effluent concentration of TBA stabilized to 1.0 µg/L. BTEX were added to the MTBE feed during the second stage of operation. Each BTEX compound was added at an influent concentration of 2 mg/L. MTBE degradation was not affected by the introduction of BTEX. During this period of operation, the MTBE effluent concentration averaged 21.5 µg/L and each BTEX compound was degraded to an effluent concentration below 3 µg/L, indicating that the addition of BTEX had little effect on reactor performance. Following this, the flow rate was incrementally increased to analyze the performance of the reactor with reduced EBCTs. Reduced EBCTs are desirable in order to minimize the cost of full-scale operations. The effluent concentration of MTBE increased with decreasing EBCT. The highest percent removal was seen at the longest EBCT (> 99.7 percent removal) and decreased to 99.1 percent removal at an EBCT of 0.27 hours.