Treatment of swine slurry in anaerobic reactor with aerobic/anoxic post-treatment

ABSTRACT

Swine farming is characterized by the production of a large volume of manure, which when improperly disposed causes impacts on water resources, soil, and air, in addition to promoting risks to human health. The joint removal of organic matter and nutrients from this type of waste has been a challenge. Therefore, the present study evaluated the simultaneous removal of carbonaceous matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus from swine wastewater in a biological treatment system composed of an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB), followed by a sequential batch reactor (SBR) operated in 24 hours aerobic/anoxic cycles. The system was divided into two operational phases: Sedimentation Column, UASB and SBR, and UASB and SBR. The UASB reactor, with hydraulic retention time of 15.5 h and applied organic volumetric load of 5.5 kg COD.m^-3.d^-1, achieved an average COD removal efficiency of 84% in the first stage. Stage 1 presented the best performance, with global average removal efficiencies of 78, 85, and 67% for COD, total nitrogen, and phosphorus, respectively.

Keywords:
anaerobic-aerobic treatment; biological removal of nutrients; swine slurry