Activated sludge process is one of the effective methods in biological wastewater treatment and the impact of oxygen transfer through aeration process has the most important breakthroughs as it served as the largest consumer in the treatment. Aeration is an energy demanding process. Oxygen transfer into an activated sludge is a very challenging issue in the field of multiphase flows. Apart from the physical mass transfer phenomena between gas, liquid and solids phases, the transport mechanisms are also overlapped by time and temperature, varying microbial activity, impurity loads, adsorption and desorption processes. Oxygen uptake rate (OUR) for microbial population in the activated sludge system is important parameter to determine the amount of oxygen consumed during aerobic heterotropic biodegradation in the system. Evaluation of specific oxygen uptake rate (SOUR) and the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (KLA) of oxygen for three different wastewater treatment processes, namely conventional activated sludge (CAS), oxidation ditch (OD) and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) treating municipal wastewater in Kuala Lumpur have been carried out. In-situ and ex-situ measurement of pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), temperature, MLSS and MLVSS were carried out. In the activated sludge treatment, very low concentration of dissolved oxygen may cause the wastewater to turn septic resulting in death of bacteria or in active due to unstable anaerobic conditions. Conversely, an excessive dissolved oxygen may result to high energy and high 25 operating cost. Higher flowrate may also cause dissolved oxygen to rise, reducing the quality of sludge and slowing the denitrification process in the system. Results revealed that the OUR for SBR, OD and CAS were 9.582 mg O2 /L/hr, 10.074 mg O2 /L/hr and 13.764 mg O2 /L/hr, respectively. Low oxygen uptake rate indicates a low rate of microbial respiration. By computing the OUR, the mass transfer coefficient could be evaluated. It should be noted that among the treatment system in this study, the conventional activated sludge shows the highest mass transfer coefficient and specific oxygen uptake rate of 2.038 hr-1 and 15.605 mg O2 /g MLVSS/hr, respectively. Improving the oxygen transfer rate and reducing aeration in the system could achieve a cost-effective aeration system.
Oxygen transfer from flowing water to microbes in an organic sediment bed
