Treatment of Domestic Sewage through Immobilized Cell Reactor with Minimum Sludge Production

The waste products of the society is collected, carried and disposed by suitable treatment methods. Domestic waste water contains a considerable amount of pathogenic organisms besides the non-biodegradable organics. The conventional technologies followed for the treatment of domestic waste water are less efficient in removing pathogenic organisms despite substantial removal of dissolved organics. In the present investigation an attempt was made to treat the sewage waste water in Fluidized Immobilized Catalytic Carbon Oxidation (FICCO) reactor. In this study rice husk carbon is used as the catalyst, in which the contaminants adsorb the catalyst. The main objective of the present study is to assess the efficiency of reducing the organic pollutant in the waste water through fluidized immobilized carbon catalytic oxidation cell reactor with minimum sludge production. The effective removal of organic pollutants through various concentrations of starch, protein, surfactant, catalyst loading, and time was found to be most successful in reducing the COD and BOD removal efficiencies of the FICCO reactor. The rice husk carbon was efficient enough to reduce COD, BOD by 91.6% and 84% respectively. The consistent removal of pollution parameters was accompanied with the removal of pathogenic and antibiotic resistant bacteria. The sludge production is only 60% of the conventional sewage treatment plant. The investment cost towards sewage treatment plant by employing rice husk carbon would be drastically reduced and thereby the operational cost towards electrical energy consumption will also be very much reduced. The reactor C with upper hopper length of 3.5cm is considered to be the desired optimum condition for running the reactor with high COD and BOD removal efficiencies.