Wastewater treatment

ABSTRACT Water shortage is currently one of the biggest concerns of human being world-wide and it becomes a global problem that affects seriously the lives of high numbers of the world population. According to the Kyoto summit in 2003 two billion people will not have access to safe drinking water supplies in the year 2015. The Mediterranean region belongs to the most affected countries in the world. Given the fact of water shortage crisis in the Mediterranean countries the EMWATER project, which is supported by European Union and managed by InWEnt (Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung), has started in 2004. This project aims to highlight innovative solutions in wastewater treatment and wastewater reuse. The primary outcome of the project will be to install and to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the management of wastewater, its treatment and reuse in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. The improvement of the security and safety of water supply in the Mediterranean countries is the best recipe for social, economic and political stability in the region and is, thus, the foremost goal of the project. This study took place in the laboratory of Wastewater Management Department of Technical University of Hamburg - Harburg, Germany during August 2004 - April 2005 within the EMWATER project. The objective of this study is to investigate the optimum conditions and treatment efficiency of domestic wastewater with Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor. This study was consisted of two parts. First part is the batch experiment. During the batch experiment, the reactor was fed at once with 100 liters of domestic wastewater from Eissendorfer Street, Hamburg-Hamburg, Germany and besides the water inside of the reactor was recirculated. The specific goal of this study is, to determine the long-term biodegradability of the domestic wastewater. The second part was carried out as feeding experiment. During this part, the UASB was fed with fresh wastewater as continuously. The aim of this part is to prove that the UASB reactor is to obtain optimum conditions of UASB reactor and its efficiency for an anaerobic treatment of domestic wastewater at low temperatures in the range of 13 - 18 °C. Biodegradability, which is calculated from initial and last values of COD original and filtered are respectively; 90.4 % and 68.66 %. Removal efficiency of TSS is 88.8 %. Regarding the efficiency results of the experiments, it is proved that the Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor is efficient for an anaerobic treatment of domestic wastewater at low temperatures (in the range of 13 - 18 °C). Keywords: Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor, domestic wastewater. x