Investigating the performance of a laboratory-scale ecological system to treat dairy wastewater.

摘要

The potential for an ecologically engineered treatment system to improve water quality is supported by the effective treatment of waste water by existing systems such as 'Living Machines' and treatment wetlands. Treatment systems and their application are discussed for waste treatment and preliminary results of a laboratory-scale system to treat dairies effluents are given. The study used an ecological treatment system similar to a 'Living Machine', consisting of five 230 l tanks which included an anaerobic tank, 2 aerobic tanks, a clarifier, an aquaculture tank and a 115 l wetland mesocosm. Preliminary results demonstrated the potential for this technology to be used for the treatment of dairies effluents following further research and modifications. Approx. 80% of solids added were removed in the first 3 tanks. Reductions in TN and TKN were as high as 90 and 94%, respectively. Reductions in NH4-N were consistently >99%, and as much as 32.3% of NO3-N was removed. A limited amount of PO4-P was removed by the system (28.2% over 168 h of treatment). Qualitative results demonstrated the potential of these systems to use waste inputs to produce value-added products.