Performance response and recovery of temporal and spatial phase separated process for nutrients removal in short-term shock loadings

This study was conducted to evaluate the stability and performance response under short-term hydraulic and organic shock load conditions in temporal and spatial phase separated process. The overall removals of BOD, TN, and TP declined slightly despite the hydraulic shock loading, and rapid recovery could be observed again after four cycles of 16 h. It seems that rapid recovery may be achieved by the unique characteristics of the system operated in a fed-batch manner. The effect of shock load on nitrogen removal due to increment of flow rate was higher than that of phosphorus, because of the insufficient reaction time for the nitrification and denitrification. After the organic shock, however, recovery time for phosphorus removal was needed rather than that of organics and nitrogen, because the overload to micro organisms related to the phosphorus release is attained by short-term organic shock loading.