International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Kuwait has built and operated an advanced wastewater treatment plant with present capacity of 500,000 m3/d. This plant providing treatment beyond tertiary utilizes the process of ultra filtration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO). The reject water of this unit contains high concentration of total nitrogen and total phosphate. Safe disposal of this water into the environment or possible reuse needs substantial reduction of these chemicals. In this study, a bench scale sequential bioreactors system was investigated to treat a synthetic saline wastewater rich in nitrogen and phosphorus compounds. The system operated with an average hydraulic-detention time (HRT) of 24 h whereas, Sludge age varied within the range of 13 to 16.5 d. The results show that the average removal efficiency of the system for chemical oxygen demand (COD) was 81.3%. The phosphate and nitrogen average removal were found to be 49.6% and 59.7% respectively.

Index Terms—Wastewater, treatment, saline, nitrate, phosphate.

S. B. Al-Shammari is with Environmental Health Departments, College of Health Science, The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait (e-mail: sb.alshemmari@paaet.edu.kw, s.b.alwan@gmail.com, salalwan@gmail.com).
A. Shahalam is with a Private Consultant, Kuwait (e-mail: aashah_1942@hotmail.com).

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Cite: S. B. Al-Shammari and A. Shahalam, "Treatment of High Salinity Wastewater Rich in Nitrate and Phosphate Using Sequential Bioreactors System," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 7, no. 10, pp. 729-733, 2016.