Evaluation of four different coagulants used for chemical dephosphorization of membrane bioreactor effluent

Abstract

A continuous flow chemical reactor was constructed to study the dephosphorization effect on the effluent of the oxygen-limited internal-loop fluidized membrane bioreactor (IF-MBR) for domestic sewage treatment. Removal effect of total phosphorus (TP) by four coagulants of AlCl3, FeCl3, polyaluminum ferric chloride (PAFC) and polyaluminium chloride (PAC) was evaluated. Results showed that when the ratio of coagulants to TP was 5 (coagulants in terms of Fe and Al), the removal efficiency of TP by FeCl3 was 92.5% and the addition of FeCl3 resulted in an increase in the chromaticity of the effluent. PAC and PAFC had good removal of TP, and the removal percentage achieved 96.2 and 97.4, respectively. However, the flocs they produced were small and light, and the performance in settlement was poor. AlCl3 performed well as a phosphorus removal agent, the removal rate of TP reached 97.4%, and the flocs were large and dense. Based on this, AlCl3 was the best choice for IF-MBR and then the experiment further optimized the Al/P ratio. Results showed that when the Al/P ratio was above 1:1, the effluent TP concentration was lower than 1mg/L; when the ratio was higher than 2.5:1, the effluent TP was lower than 0.5mg/L.