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Language: English

Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received March 19, 2012
Accepted June 23, 2012

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Simultaneous autotrophic & heterotrophic denitrification by the injection of reformed spent sulfidic caustic (SSC) in a pilot-scale sewage treatment plant

Jae-Ho Lee Jeung-Jin Park Kyo-Seong Seo¹ Gi-Choong Choi Tae-Ho Lee^2†

SU Engineering Co., Ltd., Yangsan 626-800, Korea ¹Small and Medium Business Administration, Daegu 704-833, Korea ²School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, Korea

leeth55@pusan.ac.kr

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, January 2013, 30(1), 139-144(6), 10.1007/s11814-012-0100-6

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Abstract

Spent sulfidic caustic (SSC), produced from petroleum plants, contains high levels of H2S and alkalinity. It can be used to denitrify nitrate-nitrogen via a biological nitrogen removal process, as both the electron donor and buffering agent for sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification. However, SSC also contains some recalcitrant organic compounds such as BTEX, so it has to be refined. To remove BTEX, air stripping was conducted in a laboratory scale, and as a result, over 93% of the BTEX were removed within 30min. For the reformation of the refined SSC, Na2S2O3·5H2O, methanol and organic material, produced from a biodiesel production plant, were supplemented, and referred to as new sulfidic caustic I (NSCI), II (NSCII), III (NSCIII), respectively. Thereafter, these products were applied to a modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE) process to evaluate their effects on the effluent COD and TN concentrations. As a result, there was no increase in the COD level on the injection of NSC due to the removal of BTEX via air stripping. In addition, compared to no NSC injection, 44.0% more TN was removed with an injection of NSC III, which were the most effective conditions. Thus, the application of NSC to the biological nitrogen removal process was successfully performed. These results may contribute to the development of resource recovery technology.

Keywords

Autotrophic Denitrification Spent Sulfidic Caustic New Sulfidic Caustic Biological Nitrogen Removal Modified Ludzack-Ettinger Process

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