Treatment of dyeing wastewater in two SBR systems

Two Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR) systems, namely, the 'anaerobic-aerobic ' alternative system denoted by System 1 and the 'anaerobic + aerobic' tand em system(denoted by System 2), applied to treating Reactive Turquoise Blue (RTB) contained synthetic wastewater were systematically investigated. The performance of each system in COD and RTB removals was traced throughout t he experiment. The discrepancies of the two systems in RTB removal were com pared and the reason for these discrepancies was explored. The results show ed that both systems had high adaptability and sound stability, and could r emove pollutants efficiently. As far as RTB removal, the anaerobic phase of System 1 was more efficient than that of System 2, and the aerobic phase o f System 2 was more efficient than that of System I. The overall RTB remova l rate of System 2 was higher than that of System I. These discrepancies be tween the two systems were explained by their different bio-face compositio ns, which was verified by examining the bio-faces. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.