Effect of varying environmental conditions on the performance and stability of aerobic granular biomass treating dilute Canadian municipal wastewater

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Aerobic Granular Biomass (AGB) is a relatively new development in the field of wastewater treatment and resource recovery. AGB is a result of a multitude of selective pressures inducing the selection of self-aggregating biomass, which results in granules greater than 0.2 mm in diameter. As a result, AGB is able to be quickly separated from the treated liquid stream (due to the fast settling velocity of the granules), and allows for a diverse microbial community to develop within the granules, thereby providing the ability for simultaneous removal of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus pollutants from wastewater. In practice, these benefits translate to a reduced operational footprint, significant energy savings, and lower capital investment. Currently lab-scale, pilot-scale, and full-scale implementations of the technology utilize sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) to treat high strength (600 to 1000 mg/L COD) synthetic, municipal, and industrial wastewater. In contrast, the wastewater seen in a Canadian context, is typically of lower strength (200 to 300 mg/L COD). The proposed objectives of this study are to 1) understand the effect of lower strength Canadian municipal wastewater on AGB system performance, 2) understand the effect of feeding configuration (plug flow vs. completely mixed) with Canadian municipal wastewater, and 3) construct and validate a conceptual continuous flow AGB system. The findings of this study will be vital for scale-up work for developing an AGB system capable of performing in a Canadian context.