Influence of Seasons on the Effluent Quality in SBR-Based Wastewater Treatment Plants

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of different seasons (where the temperature would be different) on the performance (phosphorous, nitrogen, and organic matter removal) of sequencing batch reactor (SBR) based wastewater treatment plants. The modified activated sludge model 2D (ASM2d) module, including the microbial kinetics is used to simulate the enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) SBR process and the temperature is chosen between 10 and 33°C. Influent data from two distinct wastewater treatment plants located in India and Europe are considered. The investigation of the kinetic variables is performed over a wide temperature range, and significant increases are seen as the temperature rises. The effluent parameters are within the government regulations. It is clear that an increase in temperature results in better effluent quality with reduced values of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), ammonium nitrogen and ammonium ions (NH₄), and total nitrogen (TN) and a slight increase in total phosphorus (TP) and total suspended solids (TSS). According to the current findings, as the temperature changes from low to high levels, the values of COD, BOD, TN, and NH₄ decreased by 2.50, 14.92, 5.80, and 9.90% respectively, for Indian data. There is a slight increase of 1.07% in the TSS profile. In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of considering the effect of different climatic conditions on the performance of SBR-based wastewater treatment plants.