Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Experiments were performed to remove nitrogen as ammonium in biotrickling lters (BTFs) treating synthetic swine manure.
Two BTFs packed with polypropylene spheres and ceramic beads were used. BTFs were continuously fed, and leachate
obtained was recirculated at dierent ow rates in the range from 0 to 1.5 L min1 . When increasing the recirculation
ow rate, the carbon dioxide (CO2 ) production rate increased from 16.5 to 25.6 g CO2 m3 h1 and nitrogen elimination
decreased from 99% to 86% for the polypropylene spheres, whereas for the ceramic beads the CO2 production rate decreased
from 20.3 to 15.0 g CO2 m3 h1 and nitrogen removal from 99% to 90%. The increase of recirculation ow rates also
promoted the production of nitrite (NO
2 ) in the leachate. For both packing types, when increasing nitrogen loads from 60 to
240 g N m3 day1 without recirculation of leachate, the BTFs achieved nitrogen removals of more than 99%. For the same
nitrogen loads, nitrogen removal increased from 90% to 99% for the BTF packed with ceramic beads at a recirculation ow
rate of 0.6 L min1 . Operating the BTFs with continuous purge was optimal for biomass production with a maximum level
of 71.3 g m3 day1 .
Keywords: biotrickling lter; synthetic swine manure; nitrogen elimination; CO2 production; nitrication; denitrication
Introduction
Pig industry and manure production
Between 1986 and 2006, the pig industry in Canada, in
terms of hogs marketed, has shown a growth of approximately 205%. In the province of Quebec, for the same
period of time, this growth has been approximately 153%
[1]. The pig industry is the second most important industry
in the province of Quebec and with about 7.3 million hogs
produced annually, it has generated incomes of more than
1.5 billion dollars in 2007 [1,2].
In Canada, between 1981 and 2006, total manure production from animal breeding has increased by 16%, the
equivalent of 25 million tons of manure. In this, total
production of swine manure rose by 5 million tons. In
the province of Quebec, an estimated 14 million tons of
manure is produced annually and about 4 million tons
of swine manure specically [3,4]. Nowadays, average
manure production across all sub-sub-drainage areas in
Canada (Quebec included) is about 1070 kg of manure per
hectare of cultured land [5].
Benets and environmental impacts of manure
Manure is the main by-product of animal breeding. It is
a mix of urine and faeces to which is added water from
piggery cleaning, rain and many wastes (food, straw, litter,
Corresponding
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Table 1.
K. Raby et al.
Comparison of the composition of crude pig manure and typical domestic wastewater.
Parameters
13,000 (10,00020,000)
16,000 (10,00020,000)
2300 (20003800)
650 (500900)
200 (120290)
240 (160350)
40 (2565)
8 (412)
Nitrogen removal
Nitrication is a series of biological reactions where
NH4 + is converted to hydroxylamine (NH2 OH), then to
nitrite (NO2 ) and nally to NO3 . Some gaseous byproducts (nitrogen monoxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (N2 )
and nitrous oxide (N2 O)) can be released from this reaction
as follows [6]:
NO, N2O
NH4+
NH2OH
NO2-
NO3-
NO, N2O, N2
(1)
This process is done by autotrophic bacteria, strictly aerobic. These bacteria use CO2 or bicarbonate (HCO3 ) as a
carbon source and NH4 + as an energy source. Denitrication is an anoxic process where heterotrophic bacteria use
oxidized forms of nitrogen (NO2 and NO3 ) as electron
donors instead of molecular nitrogen. The denitrication
process is as follows [6]:
NO3-
NO2-
NO
N2O
N2
(2)
This process can lead to a nal product of gaseous nitrogen (N2 ), which is environmentally acceptable. However,
denitrication can be stopped at any step and releases intermediate compounds such as NO and N2 O, which are gas
pollutants [6,12,13].
Bioltration of swine manure
Bioltration can be used to treat manure. A biolter (BF)
can be described as a three-phase bioreactor. The liquid
phase is the manure containing nutrients for microorganisms, the gaseous phase is the air fed part, and the solid phase
is the biolm covering the packing material. The biolm is a
microbial population where physical, chemical and biological processes occur. The immobilization of microorganisms
on the packing material allows a more stable operation by
improving the retention time of the microorganisms. Fixedlm bioreactors are widely used for removal of organic
matter and nitrogen (by nitrication and denitrication) in
wastewater treatment [14]. BFs can be divided into two
Environmental Technology
categories: 1) BFs with discontinuous feeding of the liquid
phase; and 2) biotrickling lters (BTFs) with continuous
feeding of the liquid phase.
In the literature, it is reported that organic packing BTFs
treating pig manure have shown organic matter removal
(evaluated as BOD5 ) of 9599%. BFs achieved an incomplete removal of around 75% of TKN by transforming
NH4 + by nitrication and denitrication processes [12].
Other studies on BFs treating manure and packed with
organic materials have shown that after the start-up period,
the BF totally oxidizes NH4 + to NO3 but partially reduces
NO3 in N2 . It was hypothesized that a simultaneous
nitrication and denitrication (SND) occurred. The SND
process usually occurs in anoxic micro-zones inside ocks
of biomass or deep in the biolm [6,12].
BTFs have been used in wastewater treatment for over
40 years [15]. More recently, BTFs have been used in odour
control and air pollution treatment. In BTFs, synthetic packing materials such as polypropylene or polystyrene are used
as growth media to attach microorganisms [15].
This study aims to treat swine manure in a BTF packed
with synthetic media. The research was divided into three
experimental phases. In the rst phase, the inuence of the
purging method on the CO2 and the biomass production
Figure 1.
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Table 2.
Biolter
K. Raby et al.
Summary of the operational parameters tested in biotrickling lters BK1 and BK2.
Packing
media
BK1
Ceramic beads
BK2
Polypropylene spheres
Recirculation
ow rates tested
(L min1 )
Carbon loads
Nitrogen loads
tested
tested
(gC m3 day1 ) (gN m3 day1 )
0
0
0
0.5
0.5
0.5
1
1.5
0
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
0.8
0.8
0.8
137
275
550
137
275
550
137
137
137
275
550
137
137
137
137
137
137
60
120
240
60
120
240
60
60
60
120
240
60
60
60
60
60
60
Table 3.
Purging
method
Duration of the
experiment
(days)
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
Continuous purge
No purge
Discontinuous purge
Continuous purge
27
12
21
24
22
18
15
12
24
12
15
22
22
12
95
55
50
Chemical compound
Sodium propionate
Sodium acetate
Lactic acid
Butyric acid
Ethanol
Ammonium bicarbonate
Potassium phosphate
Potassium sulfate
Chemical
formula
[Compound]
g L1 manure
C2 H5 CO2 Na
C2 H2 O2 Na
C 3 H6 O3
C 4 H8 O2
C 2 H6 O
NH4 HCO3
KH2 PO4
K2 SO4
2
2
3.3
0.07
1.7
13
0.366
4.15
Environmental Technology
replicates for each sample), were analyzed to determine
NH4 + conversion and distribution of nitrogen species in
the leachate.
For the third phase of the study, carbon elimination was
tested in BK1 with no recirculation and at a carbon load
of 550 g C m3 h1 . The duration of the experiment was
21 days and two samples, taken on dierent days (two replicates for each sample), were analyzed to determine carbon
elimination.
Performance and characterization of the biotrickling
lters
BTF performance was analyzed in terms of biomass production rate (PB), NH4 + conversion (X) and carbon dioxide production rate (PCO2 ). The variables are dened as
follows:
PB =
Dry Biomass
Number of Days
Ci Co
100
Ci
Q(CO2o CO2i )
PCO2 =
V
X =
(3)
(4)
(5)
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Figure 2. Eect of purging method on CO2 production rate ( PCO2 ) and biomass production rate ( PB). The biotrickling lter was packed with polypropylene spheres and operated under an inlet carbon load of 137 g C m3 day1 , an inlet nitrogen load of
60 g N m3 day1 and a recirculation ow rate of 0.8 L min1 .
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K. Raby et al.
Figure 3. Eect of recirculation ow rate on CO2 production rate. The biotrickling lters (BTFs) were operated under an inlet carbon
load of 137 g C m3 day1 and an inlet nitrogen load of 60 g N m3 day1 . The BTFs were packed with () polypropylene spheres and
() ceramic beads.
17.2 6.2 and 19.1 4.4 g m3 h1 for the same conditions. Both PB and PCO2 presented the highest values when
leachate was continuously purged. Chou and Wang [20]
observed that in a BTF treating ammonia (NH3 ), a fraction of the leachate must be purged and replaced by the
same volume of liquid every day to avoid the accumulation of metabolites in the system, such as NO2 and
NO3 . Without purge, these toxic metabolites accumulated in the recirculated leachate and decreased the biomass
growth.
The high variations of PB show that the biomass can
detach easily from the polypropylene surface. However, it
did not aect the microbial activity because PCO2 was stable and, according to Yang et al. [21], the biomass that
detached is mainly the inactive fraction. Since PB and
PCO2 , when using the continuous purge, were respectively
70% and 11% higher than the levels obtained with a discontinuous purge, the continuous purge was selected to carry
out the rest of the experiments.
Eect of ow rate on PCO2
Figure 3 shows the eect of the recirculation ow rate
and the packing material on PCO2 . For the polypropylene spheres, the PCO2 increased with the recirculation
ow rate from 16.5 3.7 to 25.6 3.7 g m3 h1 in the
range of recirculation ow rate from 01.5 L min1 . For
the ceramic beads, the PCO2 decreased from 20.3 4.8 g
to 15.0 1.0 g m3 h1 . PCO2 was also determined in the
three stages of each BTF as shown in Figure 1. For both
packing materials, PCO2 increased with the recirculation
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Figure 4. Eect of recirculation ow rate on NH4 + conversion. The biotrickling lters (BTFs) were operated under an inlet carbon load
of 137 g C m3 day1 and an inlet nitrogen load of 60 g N m3 day1 . The BTFs were packed with () polypropylene spheres and ()
ceramic beads.
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K. Raby et al.
Figure 5. Eect of carbon load on CO2 production rate for the BTFs operated under () no recirculation with polypropylene spheres,
( ) no recirculation with ceramic beads and () a recirculation ow rate of 0.5 L min1 with ceramic beads.
Figure 6. Eect of nitrogen load on NH4 + conversion for the biotrickling lters operated under () no recirculation with polypropylene
spheres, ( ) no recirculation with ceramic beads, and () a recirculation ow rate of 0.5 L min1 with ceramic beads.
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Figure 7. Eect of recirculation ow rate of leachate on nitrogen mass balance distribution (Concentration (% of mol N-species/mol
NH4 + inlet)) in the leachate at a xed nitrogen load of 60 g N m3 day1 for the biotrickling lters packed with (a) Polypropylene spheres
and (b) Ceramic beads. The nitrogen species were () NH4 + , () NO2 , and ( ) NO3 .
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K. Raby et al.
Figure 8. Eect of nitrogen load on nitrogen mass balance distribution (Concentration (% of mol N-specie/mol NH4 + inlet)) in the
leachate with no recirculation for the biotrickling lters packed with (a) polypropylene spheres and (b) ceramic beads. The nitrogen
species were () NH4 + , () NO2 , and ( ) NO3 .
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Table 4. Overall carbon and nitrogen eliminations when the biotrickling lter was packed with ceramic beads and
was operated under an inlet carbon load of 560 g C m3 day1 and an inlet nitrogen load of 240 g N m3 day1 with
a recirculation ow rate of 0.6 L min1 .
Carbon
Inlet ppm
22,240
Nitrogen
Leachate ppm
Removal
eciency %
Inlet
(NH+
4 ) ppm
Leachate (NH+
4,
NO
and
NO
)
ppm
3
2
Removal
eciency %
67
99.7
8778
757
91.4
Acknowledgements
Michle Heitz would like to express her sincere thanks to the
Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada
(NSERC-Strategic and Discovery Grants) for the nancial support
of this project.
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