A fancy eco-compatible wastewater treatment system: Green Bio-sorption Reactor

- An eco-friendly process of GBR was firstly proposed and examined.
- GBR holds satisfied performance, aesthetic value and potential carbon-sink.
- Alum sludge could probably be a supplement to biological phosphorus removal.
- The present GBR achieved high SND efficiency.

A novel concept was proposed and preliminarily investigated by embedding alum sludge-based constructed wetland into conventional activated sludge system in terms of Green Bio-sorption Reactor (GBR). This novel GBR inherited the aesthetic value of constructed wetland and owned the robust phosphorus (P) adsorption along with the benefit of carriers' addition (dewatered alum sludge). The preliminary demonstration was conducted in a lab-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system without biological phosphorus removal process. The novel process achieved averagely 96%, 99% and 90% for BOD, TP and TN removal with piggery wastewater as influent, demonstrating for the first time of its promising performance. Moreover, the coexistence of biofilm and suspended sludge also achieved 55-88% simultaneous nitrification and denitrification efficiency, higher than biofilm only. Overall, alum sludge-based GBR could achieve reliable pollutants removal and provides a novel and sustainable pathway to upgrade conventional activated sludge system.

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