A Novel Application of Acid-phase Digestion for Concurrent Filament Destruction and Soluble COD Recovery from Froth

摘要

New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) in conjunction withMetcalf and Eddy has been involved in a comprehensive effort to optimize Step Feed BiologicalNitrogen Removal under the purview of the PO-55A Applied Research Program. To this end,extensive pilot-scale studies have been conducted at the 26th Ward Water Pollution Control Plant(WPCP), focusing on process optimization issues such as reactor configuration and supplementalcarbon demands as well as process implementation issues such as froth control, treatment anddisposal. In this study we focus on the application of acid-phase digestion of froth for concurrentfilament destruction and soluble COD generation.Given the biological nature of froth, it is postulated that soluble carbon resulting from acid-phasefroth digestion may be used to promote denitrification in carbon limited wastewater streams,potentially offering significant savings compared to utilization of commercially availablesupplemental carbon sources such as methanol. Further, acid-phase digestion of froth could bean effective strategy for filament destruction therein.The applicability of acid-phase digestion as a strategy for filament destruction and sCODproduction from froth has been demonstrated in bench-scale and full-scale experiments.Ongoing work is aimed at determining the feasibility of applying the sCOD derived fromthermophilic acid-phase digestion to improve denitrification performance in BNR pilot reactors.