Petrochemical wastewater treatment with a pilot-scale bioaugmented biological treatment system

In solving the deterioration of biological treatment system treating petrochemical wastewater under low temperatures,bioaugmentation technology was adopted by delivering engineering bacteria into a pilot-scale two-stage anoxic-oxic (A/O)process based on previous lab-scale study. Experimental results showed that when the concentrations of COD and NH4+-N of the influent were 370～910 mg/L and 10～70 mg/L, the corresponding average concentrations of those of effluent were about 80 mg/L and 8 mg/L respectively, which was better than the Level I criteria of the Integrated Wastewater Discharge Standard (GB8978-1996). According to GC-MS analysis of the effluents from both the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and the pilot system, there were 68 kinds of persistent organic pollutants in the WWTP effluent, while there were only 32 in that of the pilot system. In addition, the amount of the organics in the effluent of the pilot system reduced by almost 50% compared to that of the WWTP. As a whole, after bioaugmentation, the organic removal efficiency of the wastewater treatment system obviously increased.