In this research, recovery of high quality organics from excess activated sludge and its potential as a external carbon sources for BNR process was studied.
By simultaneous treatment of alkali and ozone, TSS concentration was reduced by 32%, and RBDCOD fraction was increased by 76.2%, and major constitute of produced organic were acetic acid and propionic acid. Also, nitrogen and phosphorus were greatly solubilized. However, because acid-hydrolyzable phosphorus(AHP) was major part of solubilized phosphorus, NH4+-N and PO43--P concentration were insufficient for effective formation of crystal like as MAP(Magnesium Ammonium Phosphate) and hydroxyapatite. By placing BPR reactor before alkali-ozone treatment reactor, PO43--P concentration in pretreated sludge was increased by 1.8 times, and improved potential of phosphorus recovery by crystallization. In experiment of crystallization, hydroxyapatite formation was more easily applied than MAP. By hydroxyapatite formation, SCOD/PO4-P ratio was greatly increased from 32.7 at control to 141.9 at Ca2+/PO43--P mole ratio of 2.4.
The results based on this study indicated that the proposed system configuration has potential to reduce the excess sludge production, to recover phosphorus in usable forms as well as utilize organics as a external carbon source in BNR process.