Treatment of biomass gasification wastewater using a combined wet air oxidation/activated sludge process

Technical Report · Tue Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6567119· OSTI ID:6567119

English, C J; Petty, S E; Sklarew, D S

A lab-scale treatability study for using thermal and biological oxidation to treat a biomass gasification wastewater (BGW) having a chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 46,000 mg/l is described. Wet air oxidation (WA0) at 300/sup 0/C and 13.8 MPa (2000 psi) was used to initially treat the BGW and resulted in a COD reduction of 74%. This was followed by conventional activated sludge treatment using operating conditions typical of municipal sewage treatment plants. This resulted in an additional 95% COD removal. Overall COD reduction for the combined process was 99%. A detailed chemical analysis of the raw BGW and thermal and biological effluents was performed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). These results showed a 97% decrease in total extractable organics with WA0 and a 99.6% decrease for combined WA0 and activated sludge treatment. Components of the treated waters tended to be fewer in number and more highly oxidized. An experiment was conducted to determine the amount of COD reduction caused by volatilization during biological treatment. Unfortunately, this did not yield conclusive results. Treatment of BGW using WA0 followed by activated sludge appears to be very effective and investigations at a larger scale are recommended.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 6567119
• Report Number(s): PNL-4593; ON: DE83007801
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
140504* -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Biomass Production & Conversion-- (-1989)
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320604 -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Municipalities & Community Systems-- Municipal Waste Management-- (1980-)
ACTIVATED SLUDGE PROCESS
BIOCHEMICAL OXYGEN DEMAND
BIOMASS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHROMATOGRAPHY
ENERGY SOURCES
GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY
GASIFICATION
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
LIQUID WASTES
MANAGEMENT
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
OXIDATION
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PROCESSING
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SEWAGE
SPECTROSCOPY
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTE WATER
WASTES
WATER