Hydrodynamic characteristics of airlift nitrifying reactor using carrier-induced granular sludge

Abstract Since nitrification is the rate-limiting step in the biological nitrogen removal from wastewater, many studies have been conducted on the immobilization of nitrifying bacteria. A laboratory-scale investigation was carried out to scrutinize the effectiveness of activated carbon carrier addition for granulation of nitrifying sludge in a continuous-flow airlift bioreactor and to study the hydrodynamics of the reactor with carrier-induced granules. The results showed that the granular sludge began to appear and matured 60 and 108 days, respectively, after addition of carriers, while no granule was observed in the absence of carriers in the control test. The mature granules had a diameter of 0.5–5 mm (1.6 mm in average), settling velocity 22.3–55.8 m h −1 and specific gravity of 1.086. The relationship between the two important hydrodynamic coefficients, i.e. gas holdup and liquid circulation velocity, and the superficial gas velocity were established by a simple model and were confirmed experimentally. The model also could predict the critical superficial gas velocity for liquid circulation and that for granules circulation, with respective values of 1.017 and 2.662 cm min −1 , accurately.