Short-term storage and subsequent reactivation of aerobic granules cultivated with phenol emissions

The aerobic bio-granulation technology will be using towards industrial area for biological wastewater treatment. However, one of the challenges for the treatment of such wastewaters is to cope with the large fluctuations of the wastewater flow linked to the industrial activity. Therefore, the ability of the granules and the biomass to survive under such conditions needs to be investigated deeply in order to achieve reliable biological treatment parameters. During storage, the settle ability of aerobic granules was deteriorated. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) decreased significantly in the first ten days, and then kept at about 20 mg g(-1)VSS. On the 30th day, the ratio of volatile suspended solid (VSS) to suspended solid (SS) cut down to 50% and specific oxygen utilization rate (SOUR) reduced to 10 mgO(2) g(-1)VSS. Along with the reactivation, the physical characteristics and microbial activities of aerobic granules were gradually improved and recovered the level of before storage at 10th day. Though aerobic granules were encountered two months storage. After 10days of reactivation, they reached above 100% of their initial activities steadily as that of before storage.